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Chen Fan lay on the ground, covered in blood.

He should have been in a sorry state, but the situation suddenly changed.

Chen Fan's eyes began to glow, and currents of air swirled around him.

A green light rose from his body, and a small bronze furnace slowly emerged from his chest. It had three handles and four legs, with a wide top and a narrow belly.

The small bronze furnace was covered in intricate engravings that looked extraordinarily mysterious.

[Supernatural: Immortal Master of the Artifact Dao]

[Artifact Refining Furnace awakened]

[Second-tier monster material detected. Refine it to obtain Origin Artifact Materials?]

The sight stunned Sister Liangzi and the young man.

Sister Liangzi, who had already walked over, couldn't help taking two steps back.

The young man had even run to the door.

As Chen Fan lay there, he quickly figured out what had happened.

He had awakened a supernatural ability.

As the saying went, heaven never sealed off all paths!

Origin Artifact Materials?

Refine it!

Chen Fan shouted inwardly.

The bronze furnace spun around, turning its opening toward the dog monster's head beside him.

Chen Fan was lying right next to the dog monster's head.

The bronze furnace drew it in. The dog monster's head rapidly shrank and vanished inside.

He hadn't expected the dog monster to have been second-tier when it was alive.

It was hard to imagine how a second-tier monster had been killed...

The dog monster's head flew into the bronze furnace, and an instant later, information appeared in Chen Fan's mind.

[Refinement successful. Obtained 100 points of Origin Artifact Materials]

Chen Fan immediately reached out and touched the monster's severed claw.

[Second-tier monster material detected. Refine it to obtain Origin Artifact Materials?]

Refine it!

[Refinement successful. Obtained 100 points of Origin Artifact Materials]

The bronze furnace successfully absorbed and refined the monster's claw as well.

Seeing how wondrous the bronze furnace was, Chen Fan felt a rush of satisfaction.

He scrambled to his feet and beckoned. The bronze furnace appeared above his palm, floating and slowly rotating.

Even though Chen Fan was covered in blood, he still looked quite imposing, standing proudly with the furnace in his hand.

At least Sister Liangzi and the young man were awestruck.

Everything they had just seen had challenged their understanding.

First the green light, then a bronze furnace suddenly appearing, and then the monster's body parts shrinking and being sucked inside...

It wasn't as though Sister Liangzi had never seen someone awaken a supernatural ability.

But most people simply gained a burst of power, and that was it.

For example, when someone whose supernatural ability was breathing fire awakened, flames would erupt all over their body and burn for a while.

She really had never seen anything as flashy as Chen Fan's awakening.

No matter how she looked at it, this supernatural ability was not to be trifled with.

It had to be stronger than hers.

Everything suffered by comparison.

She looked at Chen Fan's supernatural ability, then thought about her own and all the fat it had given her.

Sister Liangzi felt miserable.

Her supernatural ability was [Three Little Pigs]. It gave her the strength of three adult domestic pigs, but the price was that she grew as much fat as three domestic pigs...

She hadn't been thin before the apocalypse either, but back then she had only weighed a little over three hundred jin. Now she was almost six hundred jin...

It was all because of that damned supernatural price.

But there was nothing she could do. As far as she knew, whoever awakened a supernatural ability would pay a price that affected their body.

Some prices might be lighter, like hair loss, color blindness, or a poor sense of direction.

But others could be severe: a broken leg, a lost kidney, or hearing loss...

By comparison, the price of her weight was still acceptable.

"I didn't expect a brat like you to have such damn good luck. You actually awakened a supernatural ability. But judging by that display, the price wasn't small either, was it?"

Sister Liangzi was betting that Chen Fan's price was steep and that he couldn't use his supernatural ability as he pleased.

She was also fishing for information, hoping Chen Fan didn't know it was best not to reveal his supernatural ability carelessly. If she could find out his price, perhaps it would be a weakness she could exploit.

The price?

Chen Fan sensed the ability he had awakened, but he hadn't received any information about a price.

Everything required an equivalent exchange, and he could only use his supernatural ability if he had enough Origin Artifact Materials. Did that count as a price?

Whether there was one or not, Chen Fan had no intention of revealing his ability.

Who hadn't spent the past few months struggling to survive the apocalypse?

Did she really take him for some wide-eyed college student?

Chen Fan held the Artifact Refining Furnace in his palm, wearing an inscrutable smile.

"Sister Liangzi, you've brought this death on yourself, daring to pick on me. If I were you, I'd cut the crap. You can still run while you have the chance."

Chen Fan said this purely because he didn't know what Sister Liangzi's supernatural ability was.

Besides, he had only just awakened his supernatural ability and needed time to figure it out.

It would be best if he could scare Sister Liangzi off for now.

Once he had spent half a day getting familiar with it and rejoined the group, Sister Liangzi was as good as dead.

But Sister Liangzi was an old hand herself. As soon as she heard Chen Fan's words, her mind started racing.

Even thinking with her stomach, she knew that if the supernatural ability Chen Fan had awakened was really that powerful and its price was low, he would have attacked her already.

At that thought, Sister Liangzi smiled as though she had everything under control.

She suddenly charged, her enormous frame moving without the slightest lack of speed.

She swung her baseball bat with all her might, and even the air seemed to warp beneath it.

Cruelty showed on Sister Liangzi's face as she grinned.

"Brat, you just awakened a supernatural ability, and you dare challenge me! Today I'll show you the true strength of a veteran supernatural!"

This move was called striking first!

Sister Liangzi's sudden attack startled Chen Fan.

He instinctively threw the bronze furnace at her.

The bronze furnace rotated slowly through the air, meeting Sister Liangzi's baseball bat.

Clang!

With a crisp impact, the bronze furnace was sent flying.

The next moment, it vanished and returned to Chen Fan's consciousness.

Chen Fan was dumbfounded. Why was this supernatural ability so weak? It was practically useless.

Even Sister Liangzi was stunned. The little furnace had looked so wondrous just now, yet it couldn't even withstand a single blow from her.

Then Sister Liangzi came to her senses, a vicious grin spreading across her face.

She repeatedly tapped the baseball bat in her right hand against her left palm.

Step by step, she advanced on Chen Fan.

Cold sweat poured down Chen Fan's face as he retreated one step at a time.

"What happened? Weren't you acting all arrogant just now? Go on, keep it up."

Chen Fan forced a smile. "Sis, if I said acting a little arrogant just now was the price of my supernatural ability, would you believe me?"

Sister Liangzi snorted. "What do you think?"

Chen Fan swallowed. "Sis, there's actually a heroine in the convoy I've always admired. She's big and strong, the one in my dreams who comes to pick me up on a cloud of seven colors. Guess who she is?"

As Chen Fan kept retreating, he accidentally bumped into a soul-guiding banner in the shop.

Also known as a funeral banner, it was usually placed in a mourning hall or carried during a funeral procession.

The banner Chen Fan had touched was made entirely of white cloth, with a large black character for "mourning" enclosed in a black circle.

A line was written on each side.

"A golden boy leads the way, riding a dragon eastward."

"A jade maiden escorts the departed to Penglai, riding a carefree crane."

The moment he touched the soul-guiding banner, Chen Fan received a message.

[Consume 100 points of Origin Artifact Materials to refine the soul-guiding banner into an immortal Dao artifact?]

Chen Fan froze when he received the message.

Across from him, Sister Liangzi also froze when she heard what Chen Fan had said.

Her plump face even turned slightly red.

Had Chen Fan changed his mind at the brink of death and confessed his feelings for her?

Sister Liangzi grew a little bashful and no longer wanted to beat Chen Fan to death.

"Y-you... what do you mean...? Don't tell me the heroine in your dreams is me?"

But at that moment, a cold smile appeared on Chen Fan's face.

"Your mom!"

Artifact Refining Furnace, refine it!

[Consumed 100 points of Origin Artifact Materials. Soul-guiding banner refined into the low-grade artifact Ten Thousand Souls Banner]

Behind Chen Fan, the white funeral banner released pitch-black yin energy. The entire banner turned black, as though stained by ink.

The original writing disappeared, replaced by numerous mysterious patterns.

Its form changed as well, with two strips of black cloth hanging down on either side of the main banner.

The crossbar at the top of the banner also curved slightly upward at both ends.

Overall, it became grand and magnificent, yet sinister and forbidding.

The instant the Ten Thousand Souls Banner appeared, it sent out a stream of pitch-black yin energy that wrapped around Sister Liangzi and swept fiercely over her.