Daoist Wolfslayer had no idea that the yellow jade token in Wei Tu's hand contained Seven Star Begonia Poison, lethal enough to kill even a Nascent Soul cultivator.
Just a touch of this spirit poison—
At worst, it weakened cultivation. At worst, it meant death.
Wei Tu was rich in combat experience and gave Daoist Wolfslayer no time to react.
The moment he saw his first move succeed, Wei Tu flipped his palm and brought out a fist-sized orb glowing with an eerie light.
With a surge of spiritual power, the orb fired a gray misty beam toward Daoist Wolfslayer—fast as thunder.
This artifact was the third-rank weapon known as the Fixing Light Orb, which Wei Tu had commissioned from the rogue cultivator alliance's artifact master, Yan Qing, decades ago.
From the instant Daoist Wolfslayer was poisoned, Wei Tu had already seized the upper hand in the ambush.
What remained was to kill him quickly, before he had any chance to flee or retaliate.
—Defeating a cultivator of the same realm and killing one outright were two very different levels of difficulty.
And the Fixing Light Orb's specialty was precisely in its ability to freeze a cultivator's spiritual power and Dao body instantly.
So—
Just as Daoist Wolfslayer realized Wei Tu was not to be underestimated and attempted to flee, the glowing orb had already hovered above his head.
The eerie gray mist engulfed him.
Daoist Wolfslayer immediately lost all movement. His entire body's spiritual power was sealed off, as if crushed under a mountain.
"Damn it! This poison..." Daoist Wolfslayer was furious. If it weren't for the spirit poison coursing through him, draining his cultivation, it wouldn't have been so easy for the Fixing Light Orb to restrain him.
Now he understood clearly.
He had walked straight into Wei Tu's trap. If this had been a random clash, Wei Tu wouldn't have struck with such a flawless, linked sequence of attacks.
Seizing the moment, Wei Tu didn't use offensive talismans to bombard Daoist Wolfslayer. Instead, he exploded with all his physical and cultivation power, instantly closing the distance.
Crack! Crack!
Bones snapped audibly.
With pure physical might, Wei Tu shattered every joint in Daoist Wolfslayer's limbs.
He didn't miss a single spot.
Moments later, Daoist Wolfslayer was paralyzed, his organs crushed. His meridians broken, he was now nothing but a ruined husk.
Wei Tu then muttered "Seal," casting a Spirit-Binding Talisman to lock away all of Daoist Wolfslayer's spiritual energy. He followed with the Blue Halberd Net to bind his whole body.
Only after finishing did he wave his hand, retrieving the Fixing Light Orb and the gray mist it had released.
—The Fixing Light Orb had been refined using the eyes of the Seven-Pupil Bat King. Its stored mist was limited. Like a talisman treasure, it was consumable—use it once, lose a portion.
It was essentially a short-term artifact.
Because of that, Wei Tu didn't want to waste more of its power on Daoist Wolfslayer than necessary.
…
With the orb retrieved—
Daoist Wolfslayer, though completely sealed, "revived" and regained consciousness. Pain flooded his nerves, and he let out several howls.
"Show mercy when it's due, Wei Tu! Why so vicious?" he screamed, bloodshot eyes glaring at Wei Tu with hatred.
It was a scene much like when he had once cornered Wei Tu years ago—but now with a great deal more misery.
Wei Tu only let out a cold snort and didn't reply. He pressed his right palm against Daoist Wolfslayer's skull and activated the soul path secret art, Spirit Leeching Scorpion Boat, to perform a soul search.
"Cangkun Alliance… Yuan Jie… the feud between Master Du Long and Master He Di… betrayal of Master He Di…"
Bits of information—
Flashed rapidly into Wei Tu's mind.
Compared to Bai Zhi and Liu Moqun, Daoist Wolfslayer was the weakest of the three Golden Core cultivators he had soul-searched.
It wasn't difficult.
"So that's how it is." After a while, clarity spread across Wei Tu's face.
From previous intel, he had learned that the second prince of the Right Virtuous King's manor targeted Yuan Jie because he feared Yuan Jie might rise during the "Golden Tent Election" and be chosen by the tribes to become the next Right Virtuous King of the Ying Ding Tribe.
But as for why the prince had later sent Daoist Wolfslayer to provoke him, the reason had only been passed via sound transmission, not spoken aloud.
Now, from Daoist Wolfslayer's memories, Wei Tu finally understood the whole story.
If Wei Tu went to seek help from Yuan Jie, his "backer," then the prince would send He Di's disciple, Yuan Ping, to complain. That way, Yuan Jie and Yuan Ping would fall out.
Of course, just that alone wouldn't be enough to topple Yuan Jie from his position as Right Virtuous King.
But—
The two divine masters of the Ying Ding Tribe, He Di and Du Long, had long harbored a grudge.
While it hadn't escalated into a blood feud, they definitely held each other in contempt.
And Yuan Ping was He Di's prized disciple.
If He Di got involved in the succession battle, then even if Yuan Jie had more prestige or potential, he would lose his chance at the throne.
Because, ultimately, the true power in the Ying Ding Tribe lay not with the Left and Right Virtuous Kings, but with the three divine masters.
They simply kept themselves out of worldly matters, cultivating in seclusion. That's the only reason the Virtuous Kings appeared to hold sway over the royal court and the tribal clans.
After confirming the details of the scheme—
Just like with Liu Moqun, Wei Tu began searching Daoist Wolfslayer's soul for any signs that he might've left behind clues on the battlefield, or used any communication artifacts to alert others before or during the fight.
Of course, this time, to avoid repeating the "mistake" he made while soul-searching Liu Moqun, Wei Tu had knocked Daoist Wolfslayer unconscious first, preventing him from using self-dissolution techniques on his own soul at the critical moment.
Wei Tu had carefully chosen this battlefield long in advance. It was out in the wilds, a hundred li from the nearest major tribe. Unless someone had a fourth-rank or higher means of communication, there was no way for any message to get out.
Still, it was best to stay cautious when walking the cultivation world.
Wei Tu had no desire to move from the Fen Shan Tribe and relocate elsewhere just because of this.
"Captured him too quickly. There was nothing—no signals, no links," Wei Tu murmured after finishing the soul search, finally relaxing.
"Not surprising. Daoist Wolfslayer and Liu Moqun are different. He was just a rogue cultivator who ran off to the Ying Ding Tribe." Wei Tu reflected silently.
Being a rogue cultivator meant no background, no connections.
After death, there'd rarely be anyone willing to waste time, effort, or risk their life for revenge.
So even if Daoist Wolfslayer had hidden some kind of code or clue, it was unlikely anyone could match the cipher and understand its meaning.
Wei Tu didn't let him die easily.
Cultivation techniques, secret arts, past encounters and fortunes—
He soul-searched them all one by one, draining every last drop from this old enemy to use as fuel on his own cultivation path.
After an entire day and night of soul searching, Daoist Wolfslayer's soul was severely damaged. When he finally regained consciousness, he was dazed and vacant like an idiot.
Only then did Wei Tu reluctantly remove his palm from the top of his head and erase the man's soul completely.
"An unexpected bonus." He waved his sleeve, striking the corpse with a blast of spiritual energy. A treasure flew out from within it—a wolf-head fly whisk.
This wolf-head fly whisk was the personal magic treasure Daoist Wolfslayer had spent over a hundred years refining since reaching the Golden Core stage.
Magic treasures were special items refined by cultivators after reaching Golden Core, crafted to complement their core techniques.
They grew stronger alongside the cultivator's strength.
Unlike regular magic tools, which—except in rare cases—never advanced in rank once removed from the furnace.
Of course, once the original owner died, the magic treasure would typically stop growing too. In that sense, it wasn't much different from a regular tool anymore.
Normally, because of limited time and the scarcity of materials, Golden Core cultivators didn't manage to refine a personal treasure until mid- or late-stage Golden Core.
For Daoist Wolfslayer to possess one while still in the middle stage put him among a rare class of cultivators.
Wei Tu held the wolf-head fly whisk in his palm and toyed with it briefly before discovering its effect.
With a flick of his fingers and a command of "Swift," the whisk expanded with the wind, quickly growing into a massive "brush" over ten zhang in length, floating in mid-air.
Under Wei Tu's control, the enlarged fly whisk carried a force like a ten-thousand-jun weight and slammed toward a low stone outcrop on the grassland.
With one blow, the rock crumbled into massive chunks.
"It can change size and is stronger than most third-rank artifacts. No wonder Daoist Wolfslayer was able to wipe out the Earth Element Banner of the Sand Bandit Society." Wei Tu called the whisk back to him and mused inwardly.
Possessing a personal magic treasure was one of the key benchmarks of a Golden Core cultivator's battle strength.
With this fly whisk, Daoist Wolfslayer could indeed be counted among the elite young Golden Core cultivators.
If Wei Tu hadn't struck so quickly and caught him off guard, even if his strength exceeded Daoist Wolfslayer's, the fight wouldn't have ended this easily.
"Besides this fly whisk, the most valuable thing Daoist Wolfslayer left behind is that stash of spiritual materials hidden in his secret cave."
Wei Tu's eyes flickered.
Daoist Wolfslayer had gained fame by single-handedly wiping out the Earth Element Banner of the Sand Bandit Society. That feat had won him favor with the Right Virtuous King's manor and earned him a position as a guest official.
During that battle, he had also seized a large haul of spirit materials from the bandits.
But due to the limited space in his storage pouch—and the fact that too many storage items hanging on a person looked suspicious and invited envy—he had hidden the materials in a secret cave residence, planning to sell them off slowly over time.
Based on Daoist Wolfslayer's own estimate, the haul was worth no less than seventy thousand spirit stones.
"The only problem is, the cave's in the Vast Sea Desert, where the Sand Bandit Society was based… It's a bit far from Yan Fen Mountain." Wei Tu rubbed his chin.
The Vast Sea Desert was one of the treacherous regions on the prairie, located near the Feng Wu Tribe. Like the Demon Wolf Mountains in Zheng Kingdom, it was filled with sand beasts and dangerous terrain.
Of course, danger was relative.
Aside from the Sand Bandits, crossing the Vast Sea Desert would be troublesome, but not actually dangerous for someone like him.
"I'll pass by the Feng Wu Tribe on my way to the Sacred Spring Conference. I'll grab the stash then."
Wei Tu shook his head.
Right now, his top priority was to clear himself of suspicion in Daoist Wolfslayer's death—
Not go treasure hunting.