Chapter 176: Spoils of War (Dedicated to the Southern Alliance Leader of the Holy Land)
Chapter 176: Spoils of War (Dedicated to the Southern Alliance Leader of the Holy Land)
'Sword cultivators are indeed a bunch of madmen,' the Demon cultivator at the Core Formation stage silently cursed.
The swordsmen of the Celestial Sword Sect were famous for their love of dueling, and it was said that they eagerly anticipated the great war in the cultivation world.
"Once I take you down, who would know it was our Demon Sect making a move?"
The Core Formation stage Demon cultivator brandished a pitch-black demon banner treasure, furiously waving it about.
Whoosh!
Streaks of pitch-black demonic wind, like raging dragons, rushed towards the piercing rainbow-colored light!
Boom!
However, the sword light was like a dragon, tearing through the air and slicing apart the demonic serpent-like winds one after another.
Fang Xing's sword strike brought him right before the Demon cultivator.
"Sever!"
He unleashed the power of spring thunder from his tongue, and the Rusty Sword transformed into a sword light—a brilliant blend of platinum and speckles of blue—slashing onto the defensive treasure shield.
Crack!
A crack appeared on the treasure shield.
"Impossible! This is a genuine treasure. How could it be cleaved by a flying sword that's merely a nascent treasure?... Wait, what material is your flying sword made of?"
The Demon cultivator immediately realized something was amiss and retreated like a gusting wind.
"Sever!"
Fang Xing's mouth emitted thunder, and the light from the Rusty Sword flashed brilliantly, splitting the treasure shield in two! The sword light pursued the retreating figure of the black-robed Demon cultivator.
"If you're not afraid, why are you running? Unless your demonic body is not yet perfected and can't withstand several slashes and splits..."
Fang Xing chuckled, and the Rusty Sword slashed through the black-robed Demon cultivator's robe.
Puff!
The sword light pierced through like a sharp blade through rotten leather.
The black-robed Demon cultivator's body exploded, transforming into countless gusts of wind, resembling pitch-black chains. They not only bound the Rusty Sword but also lashed out towards Fang Xing's original body.
"Hehe... You've fallen for it! Even if my demonic body is damaged, I can take your little life right now!"
With his treasure destroyed, the Core Formation stage Demon cultivator now treated Fang Xing as a mortal enemy, abandoning any thoughts of capturing him alive.
At the end of each chain, which resembled pitch-black chains, a giant hand suddenly appeared, reaching out to grab Fang Xing.
But the next moment, these iron chains automatically disintegrated, and the Demon cultivator's desperate screams echoed, "Ahhh... This is... Sword Intent?"
"Indeed, it's Sword Intent."
Fang Xing smiled faintly, and a layer of hazy radiance flashed on the Rusty Sword.
Wherever it passed, the countless black misty chains of demonic energy dissipated like spring snow under the sun.
"Your demonic body can temporarily transform into wind, but your spirit cannot withstand the slash of Sword Intent... This is the biggest weakness of your demonic art."
Fang Xing casually performed a set of hand seals, and his flying sword changed unpredictably. Streaks of Sword Intent seemed to directly slash into the Demon cultivator's sea of consciousness.
"Moreover... Your demonic art is far from perfection. While your physical body can transform, that Nascent Demon Core cannot!"
The Rusty Sword flew like a shooting star, dispersing the dense demonic mist and winds, revealing a Nascent Demon Core.
This Nascent Demon Core transformed into a radiant light, retreating, but it was struck by the flying sword.
"Ahh!"
As the Nascent Demon Core exploded, the Demon cultivator let out a miserable scream. Countless mist fragments instantly dissipated, turning into countless broken limbs and bones, raining down from the sky with a shower of blood.
After losing its master's control, the remaining treasure, the demon banner, wailed. The emerald green radiance flashed, and it shrank to the size of a palm before falling to the ground.
This Demon cultivator was truly unlucky. He hadn't considered the possibility that Fang Xing had cultivated Sword Intent.
After all, his insight was too sharp, and he had seen that Fang Xing relied on external objects to possess the pseudo-core stage strength. Essentially, Fang Xing was still a Foundation Establishment stage swordsman!
For a Foundation Establishment stage swordsman to cultivate Sword Aura was already remarkable.
One should know that even in the Celestial Sword Sect, there were pseudo-core stage and even Core Formation stage swordsmen who had not comprehended Sword Intent.
Who would have thought that Fang Xing, at the Foundation Establishment stage, would possess such an invincible means of the Core Formation stage, leading to his downfall...
Not to mention, after Fang Xing comprehended Sword Heart and Sword Intent, his sword not only destroyed the Nascent Demon Core but also annihilated all his spiritual sense and demonic thoughts, rendering all his backup escape plans useless.
Otherwise, with his demonic art, even if he encountered a late-stage Core Formation cultivator, he could have at least escaped with his life.
"And you wanted to ambush my true body?"
Fang Xing scoffed, subduing the sword light and proceeding to inspect the corpse—no, to inventory the spoils of war.
This Core Formation stage Demon cultivator did not have a storage bag, but when Fang Xing scanned the area with his spiritual sense, he noticed that amidst the scattered fragments, there was a piece of bone as translucent as jade.
Fang Xing casually performed a set of hand seals, and a flame appeared, incinerating the bloodstains.
After the flames subsided, the bone, which was as white as jade, became even purer. It was the size of a thumb, and Fang Xing grabbed it, probing it with his spiritual sense. He realized that with his current spiritual sense, it would be a bit difficult to break through this storage treasure, and it would be better to let his true body handle it.
Soon, Fang Xing put away the small demon banner treasure and found Tianyu Zhenren's headless corpse.
"Alas... Back then, you were the one who sold me the Diamond Fruit. I really wanted to get along with my fellow Daoists, but alas...alas..."
Fang Xing sighed repeatedly. He opened the other person's sleeves, and on them were sewn over ten storage bags.
"Storage bags are hard to come by, and most of them have very small capacities... Yet puppet masters need to carry a large number of puppets with them."
"This Tianyu Zhenren is indeed creative. I'm willing to call you the 'Eighteen Bag Elder' of the Beggar Gang!"
These storage bags were of lower quality, and with the original owner dead, Fang Xing was easily able to open them all with his spiritual sense.
"Hmm?"
Most of the items in the storage bags were various spirit woods, metal components, and other puppet-making materials, as well as some finished puppets.
After inspecting a few, Fang Xing's expression changed slightly. He picked up one of the pristine white storage bags and gently turned it over.
A flash of light revealed two ghost-faced beast-shaped puppets.
One resembled a lion, the other a tiger, both with evil ghost masks on their heads.
" Quasi-third-rank puppets?"
Fang Xing nodded, continuing his inspection, and then took out a human-shaped puppet.
This humanoid puppet wore a blue robe, and its skin was a normal flesh color, yet it also exuded a sense of indestructibility.
"The physique of a low-grade third-rank body cultivator is probably no better than this..."
Fang Xing looked at the face of this humanoid puppet and found it to be blurry, with only vague facial features.
"A third-rank puppet..."
"This Tianyu is such a nice guy, sending me puppets like this."
With these gains, he felt a bit indifferent to the pile of puppet remains on the ground.
However, since he had plenty of storage bags, he carefully collected them all and transformed into a sword light, disappearing from the scene.
Several hours later, a flying boat passed by. Seeing the mess on the ground, two Foundation Establishment cultivators flew out to inspect the area. They quickly returned to the boat, looking as if they had seen a ghost, and urged the boat to leave the area as fast as possible.
...
At the border of Zhenguo.
Inside a cave.
Fang Xing toyed with a pitch-black token in his hand.
The token had the words 'Myriad Phenomena' on one side and intricate carvings of wind, rain, thunder, lightning, yin, and yang on the other.
It was indeed the elder's token of the Myriad Phenomena Demon Sect!
"Ugh, I can't use this thing anyway, so I might as well get rid of it..."
He threw the token to the side with a disgusted look and then glanced at a small pile of high-grade spirit stones nearby.
With the help of his main body, he had unlocked the storage treasure of the Golden Core Demon Cultivator. He found that the space inside was quite large, almost four to five cubic meters in size, second only to the bronze storage ring he had obtained before.
Inside the storage treasure were dozens of high-grade spirit stones, a large number of medium and low-grade spirit stones, and a plethora of items exuding a sinister demonic aura.
For example, there were several green and oily Yin dates, some white and jade-like bones, and even jars of refined blood...
Fang Xing set aside a storage bag specifically for these items, planning to find a place to sell them at a low price.
In addition, there were also jade slips, letters, and similar items.
Most of them were incoherent, and some were entirely in code.
Fortunately, Fang Xing was an expert in decoding, and with the help of an artificial intelligence computer, he was able to decipher most of the content.
"So... the Wind Demon Messenger was coveting my body... No, coveting the body of a third-rank body cultivator. The Myriad Phenomena Demon Sect is planning something big and needs to enhance their strength by refining the 'Eighteen Turning Heaven Golden Corpse'..."
"Once these eighteen golden corpses are combined to form the 'Myriad Phenomena Unpredictable Grand Formation', they can even trap a Nascent Soul... Even a few of them alone would be enough to wreak havoc among Golden Core cultivators."
"However, these golden corpses are difficult to cultivate, and it's best to use the bodies of third-rank body cultivators as a foundation... After many years, the Myriad Phenomena Demon Sect has only gathered ten of them, and the grand formation they can form can barely trap an early-stage Nascent Soul... Their power is insufficient, so they have been rushing to complete the task."
"If they were to gather all eighteen Turning Heaven Golden Corpses... Their target is probably that wandering Supreme Elder - Chu Kuangtu?!"
The reason they were still searching outside was naturally because third-rank body cultivators were extremely rare, and breaking through the third-rank bottleneck required exceptional talent.
Even with the Diamond Fruit, most quasi-third-rank body cultivators might not be able to advance smoothly.
After all, this step was equivalent to the crucial breakthrough from the Foundation Establishment to the Golden Core stage!
And there were far fewer body cultivators than law cultivators.
Most of them lingered at lower ranks, and it was rare to see quasi-third-rank body cultivators.
"It seems that after I showed up, Tianyu Zhenren must have been overjoyed, like a fisherman waiting for a fish to take the bait... Perhaps he deliberately revealed the Diamond Fruit, a body-refining spirit item, with the intention of luring me in. And I, the fish, took the bait."
And alas, he ended up hooking a great white shark... Oh well, bad luck for him."
Fang Xing continued to search, only to find nothing related to the Myriad Phenomena Demon Sect's cultivation techniques, much to his disappointment.
He was actually quite interested in their Wind Murderous Demon Art. In his opinion, this demonic art could transform one's physical body into a certain kind of energy entity, avoiding most vital weaknesses.
Although it couldn't compare to a cultivator's Nascent Soul, it was still quite impressive.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the demonic cultivator didn't carry the fundamental techniques with him.
Fang Xing silently criticized, then flipped to a black jade slip, "Hmm? Soul-Search-and-Destroy technique?"
He became intrigued and read further, only to discover that it was a demonic art with a bloody and cruel style.
It emphasized using powerful spiritual sense to first crush the target's soul, which was unable to resist, and then extract the desired information.
Since the technique required crushing the soul first, the target would most likely die after it was performed.
Additionally, the scattered memories extracted might not be complete and could have missing or omitted parts...
"But nonetheless, it's a soul-searching technique."
"It does have somewhat high requirements. It's best for a Core Formation cultivator to start practicing it, and it's more reliable for a Foundation Establishment cultivator to use it. If the target is of the same cultivation level, then various means must be employed to weaken their soul first..."
"Also, this technique cannot be used to search the souls of Nascent Soul cultivators, as their Nascent Soul embraces their spiritual sense, protecting it..."
"Not bad at all."
After clearing away the Golden Core demonic cultivator's storage items, Fang Xing began to sort through Tianyu Zhenren's dozen or so storage bags.
He categorized the pills, spirit stones, and jade slips one by one.
This time, his luck wasn't bad. He not only found a copy of the Jade Universe Art, which was Tianyu Zhenren's cultivation technique, but also a jade slip containing a summary of his puppet techniques, which could be considered a third-rank puppet legacy.
"If I sell this, I'll definitely get a lot of spirit stones..."
Fang Xing secretly rejoiced and began browsing through this third-rank puppet legacy.
"Tianyu Zhenren initially obtained a second-rank puppet legacy, specializing in the creation of beast-shaped puppets, and had a bonus when handling various gold and jade materials... Later, he seemed to have mixed in other puppet legacies, leaning towards human-shaped puppets..."
"Puppet masters need to cultivate special spiritual techniques to be able to 'split their spirit and transform their thoughts', allowing them to control a large number of puppets... They also need to be able to multitask."
"If it were any other cultivator, they could control at most one or two puppets and still wouldn't be able to fully utilize the power of the puppets..."
"Hmm, let's call this puppet secret manual Pulling the Silken Threads."
Fang Xing had no intention of cultivating puppet techniques, as sword cultivators valued purity and specialization. Moreover, cultivating puppet techniques was time-consuming and laborious.
With that spare time, he could just smuggle in a mechanical army from the main universe.
As for the three high-rank puppets, he could use them temporarily.
If they broke, he could just sell them, and they would still fetch a good price.
"Unknowingly, have I become so wealthy?"
Fang Xing murmured to himself.
...
Zhenguo
Qingyan Marketplace
This marketplace was located at the border between Qingxi Zong and Hei Tian Guan and was established by a Foundation Establishment sect called 'San Ye Pai'.
The sect's ancestor was said to be a Foundation Establishment cultivator who had reached the peak, originally from Qingxi Men.
Later, when he lost all hope of forming a Golden Core and couldn't even get a chance to form a fake core, he had no choice but to leave and establish a cultivator family.
Unfortunately, the family didn't prosper, and children with spiritual roots became fewer and fewer. Gradually, the family was controlled by outsiders, and with the support of Qingxi Zong at the time, they established the 'San Ye Pai'.
San Ye represented the three major clans within the sect.
However, they still revered that Foundation Establishment cultivator from Qingxi Zong as their ancestor, perhaps in hopes of gaining favor from Qingxi Zong.
One Day
In a regular shop in Qingyan, the shop owner was just opening for business.
Suddenly, the sound of a sword whistle flashed across the sky.
The old shop owner, who was smoking his pipe, paused and stared blankly.
"That sword sound... It must be a Core Formation cultivator passing by."
The waiter envied, "I wish I could be like that one day."
Not long after, a young man in silver robes walked into the shop. Seeing the shop owner, he nodded and threw over a sword-shaped token, "I have something stored here. Take it out!"
His words were calm, but they carried an undeniable force, and a sharp aura rushed towards the shop owner.
After arriving in Zhenguo, Fang Xing immediately put everything else aside and headed towards the place where Tian Jianzong's undercover agent was located.
For him, nothing was more important than obtaining the Sun True Yang and allowing his main body to condense a Martial Arts Golden Core, not the Beast Controlling Sect or the demonic invasion.
(End of Chapter)
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