Refining the Mountains and Rivers

Chapter 30 – Cultivator Role Models of the New Era

This was an inner core! This strange fish was indeed a Golden Core level beast. This was a precious treasure and could be refined into a treasure or made into the eye of an array. It could even be turned into pills; it was just an all-round versatile treasure.

As for the miniature strange fish within the inner core, Qin Yu didn’t care about it at all. As long as he didn’t try to refine the inner core into a pill then the remnant spirit wouldn’t be able to do anything to him. Even if the remnant spirit tried to rush out on its own, it would instantly evaporate without Qin Yu needing to do anything at all.

He put away the strange fish’s contribution with a satisfied smile. Then, his eyes fell on Blacksky Demon’s body.

With the strange fish as an example, a proud and noble demonic Golden Core cultivator shouldn’t be any worse.

He took out the storage bag and searched it with his divine sense. He sucked in a deep breath and sighed from his heart. What a wonderful person! Compared to Li Yunmo’s storage bag, the contents in this one left him crying tears of joy. Indeed, even the wealth of dead people depended on one’s luck!

Blacksky Demon’s storage bag was over ten feet large and had more than 2000 spirit stones within; they were piled up into a small hill. Spirit stones weren’t items that Qin Yu used often so he didn’t pay much attention to them, but that was because he was an abnormal freak who cultivated using medicines, and simply couldn’t be compared with other cultivators who frantically saved spirit stones and then had to carefully absorb the spiritual strength within. However, spirit stones were themselves a form of currency between cultivators, and it was always best to have more when he was trying to make his next breakthrough.

And there was also the infamous Blacksky Beast Dominion Art!

However, Qin Yu only flipped over the thick book that was bound in some unknown leather to know that Blacksky Demon had only been faking the origins of his Blacksky Beast Dominion Art. After glancing through the book, he discovered that the information contained within was vast beyond measure and was ethereal as mist; it simply didn’t have the name of Blacksky.

What he could determine was that this was an extremely ancient beast dominion art. Because many of the monster beasts described within had already vanished, Blacksky Demon had only managed to comprehend the most trivial amount of knowledge from it, and he used that little bit of knowledge as the base for the infamous Blacksky Beast Demonion Art. The preciousness of this beast dominion art was enough to benefit a person for a lifetime.

Besides that, there was also a hand-sized black flag. Without a doubt this was a magic tool, the Soul Burying Flag. It could bury the souls of powerful enemies inside so that they could be released in battle later. The souls buried within would have 30% of the original person’s strength. The highest level that could be entombed within was a Golden Core, and the soul had to be buried before it dissipated. Even though it was only 30%, it was more than amazing.

Unfortunately, Blacksky Demon had died and the souls he buried inside had vanished with it. Otherwise he would be able to test the might of this Soul Burying Flag. After using a drop of blood to establish ownership and sighing over how incredible these demonic path magic tools were, he thought that he had missed something.

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He suddenly slapped his hand and cursed himself for being an idiot. He activated the Soul Burying Flag and a black fog blew out, covering Blacksky Demon’s corpse. After several breaths of time, just as Qin Yu’s disappointment was growing, black fog suddenly tumbled around and a completely black and dull-looking Blacksky Demon appeared in front of him.

Qin Yu was excited. He tried to control Blacksky Demon, and he caused Blacksky Demon to raise his hand and smash out a ball of demonic energy. The demonic energy crashed into a wall, causing large pieces of stone to fall. Qin Yu was puzzled. Blacksky Demon’s strength seemed to only be at the early Golden Core realm; it was completely disparate from his sixth level Golden Core cultivation. Could this be because he had died too long ago and he had also been severely wounded when he died?

Qin Yu didn’t know that besides these two reasons, the most important was his fourth level Foundation Establishment cultivation. If the soul hadn’t been dead for a long time, causing a great deal of its energy to fade away, then let alone burying the soul in the soul flag and summoning Blacksky Demon, he would have already suffered a backlash and been devoured instead!

After thinking for a long time, Qin Yu recalled Blacksky Demon. He felt that his number of life-saving cards had risen and he praised Blacksky Demon in his heart. Not only did Blacksky Demon contribute this small bag of treasures, but he even offered up his own soul. If news of this were to spread out, then Blacksky Demon’s reputation that had been built up over 10 years would completely collapse!

With 2000 spirit stones, the Blacksky Beast Dominion Art, and the Soul Burying Flag, Qin Yu didn’t really care much for the treasures he saw afterwards. But, the items that a Golden Core cultivator collected were all high-quality. For instance, there was a bamboo dragonfly that was hard to tell if it were real or fake. If one poured in enough magic power then it could sustain itself for a month and was a good tool in surveillance and investigating. There were also several packets of seeds. These seeds were the size of sesame seeds and were covered in star-like marks; they clearly weren’t ordinary.

Finally, what appeared in front of Qin Yu were several black jade slips. He looked through them and discovered they were vile and ruthless demonic arts techniques. One needed to be a demonic cultivator to learn them, so even if they were powerful he could only look at them from a distance. In coming this far, Qin Yu had obtained a great deal of wealth from demonic cultivators and he even believed he shared a bit of fate with the demonic path. However, he had no intentions of ever walking the demonic path.

Demonic cultivation was fast at the start but was slower the further it went. Moreover, the methods involved often disobeyed the rules of heaven and those that cultivated them died unnatural deaths many times. For instance, for demonic cultivators, the heavenly tribulation they faced upon breaking into the Golden Core or Nascent Soul realms could be called walking through two gates of death.

And the final jade slip.

It was ordinary to the touch and the textures of the previous few jade slips were actually a bit better. But, Qin Yu didn’t want to miss out on anything good, so he casually swept through it with his mind to determine if it was useless or not. Soon, his complexion became dignified.

It was only after a long time that Qin Yu laid down the jade slip and scratched his head. He mumbled, “How come I think that the things recorded inside seem a bit familiar…” He took out two storage bags from his clothes. He put the gold and silver thread storage bag to the side and looked through the one that Li Yunmo had contributed to him. With a thought, 30 some pitch black jade boxes appeared on the ground.

“Altogether, there is a total of 36.

“Demonic spirit tentacles, smooth to the touch with a bloody smell.

“Jade demon bone, the bone of a Nascent Soul demonic cultivator. The demonic energy is extracted into one place and precipitated over the years.

“Ancient mussel. Born in the black depths of the sea, it has never seen sunlight in its life. It contains an extreme yin ice energy.”

Qin Yu whispered in a soft voice. His eyes became increasingly bright. Because of his excitement, a blush began to appear on his cheeks. As more time passed, he was more and more positive that the items required to cultivate the Demon Body recorded within the jade slip were in the 36 boxes found in Li Yunmo’s storage bag.

Qin Yu was finally aware why Li Yunmo had seemed so hesitant and pained when he handed over this storage bag. In order for that old demon to cultivate the Demon Body, he must have spent an incredible number of years collecting all 36 sacrificial items required. It had to be known that many of those items, such as the jade demon bone, ancient mussel, and others, were all rare materials. But in the end they had been taken away by Qin Yu’s order and Li Yunmo must have felt deep sorrow at that time.

In truth, the pain in Li Yunmo’s heart was absolute. His demonic clan had spent hundreds of years to gather all 36 of these sacrificial items and they only lacked the final drop of qualified demon blood in order to smoothly cultivate the Demon Body.

But relatively speaking, the difficulty in gathering the 36 sacrificial items wasn’t anything at all compared to finding a drop of qualified demon body.

When Li Yunmo reached the Golden Core realm he had inherited these jade boxes. But even after exhausting all possible methods over 300 years, he had never found any news related to the demon blood. It was impossible for this sort of pure and powerful demon blood to appear in this land. Perhaps the only place it could exist was in the distant Land of Divinity and Demons. But with his martial talent, he would never have the chance to enter that land.

So at that time when Qin Yu demanded it, Li Yunmo had handed over the storage bag after a moment of hesitation. This was because he was absolutely certain that no matter who obtained these 36 jade boxes, they would only be able to look at them without using them. He had considered it as dropping a heavy bag that he kept on him, but of course, the grudge he bore towards Qin Yu was no less.

Qin Yu didn’t know any of this. He only discovered that he seemed to stumble across a massive harvest and his mind was drowning in happiness.

Demon Body.

It was the highest body cultivation method of the demonic path. After successfully cultivating it, one’s mortal body would become harder than stone and iron and they would have the strength of 10,000 demons behind them. If one cultivated this technique to the peak then they could obtain an immortal and everlasting body, stepping through the endless eons! And, what was most important was that cultivating the Demon Body didn’t require any demonic energy at all, and even after cultivating it, it would be hard for others to detect even while using it.

Qin Yu felt that this was a body transformation technique custom-tailored for him. He had already tasted the advantages of having a powerful mortal body and he had long since decided to step onto the road of body cultivating. Now that he encountered such an amazing body transformation technique, if he were to miss out on such an opportunity then the heavens would definitely strike him with a bolt of lightning.

In any case, all he lacked was a drop of qualified demon blood to successfully cultivate the Demon Body! It was like all he had to do was reach out a hand and place the glittering signboard of ‘Demon Body Cultivator’ atop his head.

He had definitely wronged Li Yunmo for what he had thought was a bunch of useless items. Qin Yu reminded himself that in the future he needed to take a comprehensive look at people lest he draw the wrong conclusions from only seeing a part of them!

Moreover, these demonic cultivators were too kind. Not only did they deliver treasures to him but they also coordinated with each other, delivering him treasures that worked together. They were simply the cultivator role models of the new era!

It was only after he carefully put away the 36 jade boxes and placed the storage bag deep in his clothes that his state of mind calmed down. He looked at the withered corpse of Blacksky Demon and the bloody corpse of the strange fish and decided that he needed to bury them.

But before that, he needed to be sure of where he was.

Since Blacksky Demon had died, Ning Ling would be safe. But he feared that if he didn’t return she would worry over him. With such thoughts in mind, Qin Yu’s steps quickened. He continued along the cave, the path pitch black all around him. It seemed immeasurably deep, but after just walking seven or eight meters he reached the end.

What blocked his way was a layer of unknown light. Qin Yu picked up a rock and threw it into the light barrier. As the stone passed the light barrier, he heard a vague rumbling.

This was the only entrance to the cave, so if he were in here then he must have passed through to come here. And with that stone just now, he believed there shouldn’t be any dangers. With a deep breath, Qin Yu stepped forwards. Then, as he felt emptiness beneath his feet, he stiffened, his back suddenly drenched with sweat.

At this time, what he saw was this:

In the middle of the tunnel was a massive channel that fell straight down. There seemed to be some sort of invisible force that gathered the flow of water into this channel, causing it to roar as it dropped off into the fathomless dark below! The walls of the black channel had several faint spots of light covering it, but it was negligible in the overall picture. Half of Qin Yu’s body was coming out from one of these spots of light, and one of his feet had stepped onto nothingness.

If it weren’t for him being cautious and slowly stepping forwards, then he wouldn’t have been able to forcefully stop himself. He feared he would have already fallen into this channel. As he saw the roaring water all around, his scalp turned numb.

He drew back and took great heaving gasps of breath. It was like he had just experienced a brush with death. After stabilizing his thoughts, Qin Yu forced himself to think about what had occurred. After a moment of confusion his eyes began to brighten. As he thought of the deep pool he saw when he jumped down and the dead strange fish, his complexion began to turn ugly.

If he wasn’t wrong, then he must be beneath that deep pool. As for why there was such a terrifying scene beneath the pool, only the heavens knew why! And as to how he had ended up in this little cave with Blacksky Demon and the strange fish, he had no inclination to think about it at this time. His entire brain was occupied with a single thought – just how could he leave?

To some degree, the answer was simple. As long as he could go against the flow of water then he could swim his way out from this pool. But, the problem was that there was the unfathomably deep and terrifying black hole and the raging currents of water that swirled down into it. All of this left his heart shuddering. For some unknown reason, he was sure that if he fell down into that hole he would be torn to shreds!

Qin Yu calmed himself back down. After all, he had already experienced being trapped in the Pill Disposal Department before, so his willpower in these situations was much higher than normal. He frowned and continued to think. He and Blacksky Demon were outsiders; this meant that the only thing that could live here was that strange fish. Fish needed water, and it was the same even for that Golden Core realm fish monster. And here, the only water was that terrifying vortex outside.

This meant that the strange fish could survive in the water!

Qin Yu’s eyes brightened. He had grasped a vague idea of what to do, but as for whether or not he would succeed, he had no idea at all. After several breaths of time he clenched his teeth and firmed his resolve. If he didn’t try this then that only left him with two results: he could cultivate to the Golden Core realm and break his way out or he could remain trapped here until he died. No matter how he saw it, the chances of the latter happening were higher.

It was time to test his luck!