Wrinkled Skin, Foreign Races in the Ancient Forest!

[While the book is new, fellow readers, please don't send red packets for recommendation votes and such. They're useless. The ones grabbing them are all bots, or else zombie favorites. When the Clan Chief gets a recommendation slot later, they'll remove the book from their favorites. Then, while the book is being recommended on the site, its favorites won't rise-they'll actually show a decline.]

Feeling the crescent-shaped pattern, Qingyang Huan understood just how fortunate he was. No wonder the stone spear disdained him and even the entire Qingyang Clan.

Bone Runes born from the blood and bone essence of great beasts were the stuff of legends in the Qingyang Clan and even throughout the Ancient Land of La Mountain. Throughout the ages, there had been no shortage of mighty warriors who controlled Bone Runes and imposed their might upon the vast wilderness. Even the Qingyang Clan produced a few such people in every generation.

Yet they merely borrowed Bone Runes to increase their strength. The stone spear had shown him that he should merge the Bone Rune completely with his body, making them indivisible, and use his bodily sensations to comprehend it, truly making it his own rather than copying and imprinting it!

The great beasts of the primordial wilderness were powerful because their bodies contained these Bone Runes. These were manifestations of the Dao Dharma of heaven and earth. Bone Runes were, in fact, a medium for comprehending the Great Dao of heaven and earth. Traced back to its root, it was all about comprehending that Great Dao!

This was a transformation in essence.

After three days of continuously drawing in the blood Qi essence of ferocious beasts, this repeated process had already forged a connection between the Slaughter Bone Rune and his body.

The next instant, the Bone Rune manifested in his palm suddenly shattered, and he could no longer summon it. Clearly, he had not even crossed the threshold yet.

"Once the Bone Rune enters your body, you need to comprehend it yourself. This Bone Rune merely came from a beast with a thin trace of Qiongqi blood. It's crude in the extreme, but it still makes a decent starting point!"

"If you can someday use this medium to comprehend slaughter and condense your own Dao Dharma, you'll be able to tear apart even a true Qiongqi!"

"Senior Stone Spear, aren't the Bone Runes inside great beasts innate?" Yet the stone spear gave no further answer, leaving Qingyang Huan feeling awkward.

"Over these three days, you absorbed thirteen ferocious beasts in total. Remember what you need to do!"

After a hum, the stone spear fell silent again. Only then did Qingyang Huan look around and see the ferocious beast pelts strewn across the ground.

His mouth could not help spreading into a grin. The stone spear had not guarded his path for three days for nothing. He needed to repay those thirteen ferocious beasts by hunting ten times as many for the stone spear to absorb!

But compared with the opportunity he had gained, he would not care even if he had to repay it a hundredfold. If he could not repay it all at once, he would do so slowly. Perhaps he could even keep the stone spear by his side that way.

Only an opportunity firmly grasped truly belonged to him!

The Slaughter Bone Rune from the great beast Qiongqi corresponded to the Slaughter Dao Dharma of heaven and earth. His father had comprehended Dao Dharma, but he had only begun after entering the Spirit Seizing realm. Qingyang Huan was merely at Body Casting now, yet he had already started down this path.

"I wonder if I can measure up to the descendants of those ancient great clans now!"

"You're miles behind! Hurry up and hunt ferocious beasts!" The stone spear abruptly hummed and swept him flying!

Squelch!

Deep in the ancient forest, several ancient trees were smashed apart in succession. A Crimson Fire Rhinoceros, fully thirty feet in size, had its head pierced straight through by a stone spear. Even its skull shattered, and its rich blood Qi was drawn directly out of its body!

Beside a pool spanning ten li, a giant crocodile roared. Its enormous tail radiated a chill as it swept toward Qingyang Huan. Caught off guard, he was sent flying.

"Kill!"

The next instant, however, a murderous presence erupted. The slaughter it radiated merged with the stone spear as it smashed down on the giant crocodile's body.

The seemingly crude, blunt stone spear smashed the giant crocodile into two halves. Blood sprayed more than a hundred feet away. Only after several breaths did the giant crocodile collapse, its blood gushing like a spring and flowing like a small river.

A faint killing aura wreathed Qingyang Huan's body, but it seemed extremely unstable, breaking off and resuming, appearing and disappearing.

After drawing in the giant crocodile's blood Qi, he traveled several li away from the pool, carved a cave into a small hill, and sealed himself inside. With the stone spear in hand, he had no fear of ferocious beasts attacking him in this ancient forest.

He leaned against the slightly damp rock wall. The cramped cave was filled with a heavy reek of blood, and his hair and beast-hide robe had long since matted together in clumps.

Ten days had already passed since he had refined the Bone Rune anew. He had been searching for that sensation of slaughter all along, but could make neither head nor tail of it. Only while fighting ferocious beasts to the death would that presence faintly emerge.

Regardless, he had tangibly felt the benefits. This was power he could truly control himself, unlike before, when he had needed blood Qi to activate it!

"Hmm?"

Just then, he reached down and scratched his waist. Beneath his skin, it felt as though ants were crawling, bringing a tingling numbness.

These past days, he had done nothing but fight or flee with great beasts chasing him. Fortunately, he was still within the several hundred li belonging to the Qingyang Clan, where there were no particularly powerful variant beasts.

He would not go courting death by venturing into especially dangerous places.

The next instant, however, Qingyang Huan tore a patch of old skin from his waist, dried blood clinging to it. His newly grown skin had the feel of fine, dense patterns.

"Skin Wrinkling!"

He immediately understood. That rough sensation on his body resembled the scales of a ferocious beast. This was a phenomenon that only appeared upon reaching the limit of Skin Tempering in the Body Forging Realm.

Only a few days had passed, and he had already achieved Skin Wrinkling!

Moreover, because he had abandoned his previous Body Casting cultivation at the beginning, his original strength of seven thousand jin had plunged to below one thousand jin. He had been forced to flee through the ancient forest for three straight days, constantly hunting beasts that had yet to enter Body Casting to replenish what he expended.

Now, the blood Qi throughout his body had surged to five thousand jin. Strictly speaking, he had only just reached Skin Tempering, the first step of Body Casting. At this rate of growth, by the time he entered the second step, his strength would surpass the level of the fourth step of Body Casting that he had originally been about to enter!

Of course, the slaughter he had experienced these past few days exceeded that of all his previous years. The blood staining his body and the pain he suffered were dozens or even a hundred times greater than before.

After restarting his cultivation with the skin-tempering method improved by the stone spear, he had absorbed the blood Qi essence of dozens of ferocious beasts to reach his present state. No wonder the stone spear had said that merging the Bone Rune with the body was the true path of cultivation.

That flickering Slaughter Qi ravaged his body like cutting blades. To maintain his strength, he had no choice but to draw in blood Qi essence with all his might to replenish himself.

This process repeated every moment. Even if he did not want to temper his body, it would have been difficult not to!

With the stone spear in hand, he passed the danger-ridden night, sitting cross-legged in the cave and circulating the Body Casting formula improved by the stone spear without worry. Beneath his blood-caked beast-hide robe, a layer of old skin peeled away, replaced by faint wrinkles like the bark of an old tree. But by the time he awoke, those wrinkles had hidden themselves within his flesh.

As the morning sun rose, Qingyang Huan stepped out of the cave. He had a feeling that the more he slaughtered, the more closely he would align with the Bone Rune entrenched within him, and the greater the tempering of his flesh would become.

After Skin Wrinkling came Radiance Born of Flesh and Blood, the most crucial part of laying a solid bodily foundation. Flesh was the source that stored blood Qi. When the flesh flourished, a warrior's vitality naturally flourished as well.

If he wanted to reach the stage of Radiance Born of Flesh and Blood as quickly as possible, the Slaughter Bone Rune within him would be indispensable. Before, he had worried whether he could cultivate to the Body Casting Extreme Realm within two years. Now, however, he had gained a measure of confidence!

Roar!

Deep in the ancient forest, great swathes of ancient trees toppled. A great beast roared, shaking the forest into a rustling tremor. In the surrounding woods, ferocious beasts kept fleeing madly in every direction.

Red-Tailed Fire Rhinoceroses, Iron-Scaled Mountain Leopards, Golden-Hoofed Unicorns-all were ferocious beasts of the Body Forging Realm. Among the dozens of beasts, Qingyang Huan was also sprinting wildly. At this moment, he and the beasts around him had actually fallen into a strange state of relative peace.

Several li away, a variant Purple Lightning Silver-Patterned Marten, barely a foot long yet incomparably fierce, was driving the beasts in a single direction.

Swept along in the beast tide, he too headed deeper into the ancient forest.

A foul stench filled the mountain forest, and there were even gurgling sounds. This was a swamp. Bubbles carrying a putrid odor churned up through the water, and numerous white bones lay scattered within it.

Hum!

Hiding beneath an ancient tree outside the swamp, Qingyang Huan looked toward it. This place was far too uncanny. A purple marten was actually driving ferocious beasts into the swamp.

Squelch!

At that moment, he saw a withered old tree at the swamp's edge, barely ten feet tall, stab toward a Red-Tailed Fire Rhinoceros. Without the slightest pause, its withered branches pierced the fire rhinoceros's hide armor.

No matter how the fire rhinoceros struggled, in just a few breaths, the Red-Tailed Fire Rhinoceros was drained of blood and bone. The mottled bloodstains remaining on the withered branches looked strangely alluring.

Hiss!

At the sight, Qingyang Huan could not help drawing in a sharp breath. This fire rhinoceros was only comparable to the earliest stage of the Body Forging Realm, and even he could take it down now. But that was not the main issue-the strange tree before him was.

"A Blood-Sucking Tree!"

He instinctively tightened his grip on the stone spear. At that moment, however, the stone spear flashed with purple light, and a murderous presence surged out!

"A foreign race. It deserves death!"

P.S. Please vote! Please vote! Please vote!