Luo Zhen offered a placid smile, the picture of calm amidst a courtyard piled high with raw power. "Steward Dong," he said, his voice even, "by my count, there are fifteen segments of Ba Serpent flesh here. As per our agreement, that comes to one hundred and fifty thousand contribution points."
It wasn't a boast. He could have produced far more, but the cobblestone courtyard was already a veritable butcher's shop, a mountain of glistening, otherworldly meat that pulsed with latent spiritual energy.
"One hundred and fifty... thousand..." Dong He stammered, the color draining from his face. He wiped a sleeve across his sweaty brow, his professional composure crumbling. "But... I don't... I don't possess that many points."
Luo Zhen's smile didn't waver, but his eyes sharpened slightly. "Then what do you have?"
"Fifty thousand," Dong He admitted, his voice barely a whisper. "In total. That's everything I've scraped together over years of slaving over a crucible, painstakingly refining pills for the sect."
A frown finally creased Luo Zhen's brow. This was an unexpected complication.
Before he could formulate a response, a cacophony erupted from beyond the courtyard's heavy wooden gate.
"Dong, you old coot! What in the blazes are you cooking up in there? There's a pillar of spiritual energy blasting out of your courtyard that you can see from the other side of the hall!" The voice was a gravelly roar, and it was getting closer. An instant later, the gate was thrown open with a resounding crack, revealing another elderly man, his robes dusted with the ash of alchemical ingredients.
Dong He jumped as if struck by lightning, lunging to block the entrance, but he was a fraction too late. The newcomer, still mid-rant, had already stormed inside.
He stopped dead in his tracks. His jaw went slack. Before him lay a small mountain of crimson and ivory flesh, each segment as large as a carriage wheel, shimmering with an energy so dense it was almost visible.
"Sweet mother of alchemy..." the old man breathed, his eyes wide with disbelief. "All this demonic beast flesh! What in the world did you hunt? Some kind of colossal serpent?"
"The exotic Ba Serpent," Luo Zhen supplied calmly, stepping forward. "Demon Emperor-level."
The words struck the old alchemist like a physical blow. "Exotic... Ba Serpent? Emperor-level?!" His shock morphed instantly into righteous fury. He whirled on Dong He, a finger stabbing accusatorially. "You magnificent bastard, Dong He! You found a treasure like this, and you were trying to keep it all to yourself!"
Without another word, the man leaped into the air, his robes billowing as he hovered a dozen feet above the courtyard. He took a deep breath, his chest swelling, and bellowed with the full force of his cultivation, "EVERYONE, GET OVER HERE! DONG HE IS HOARDING THE FLESH OF A DEMON EMPEROR! FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED!"
His voice, amplified by his power, rolled like thunder across the entire Artifact Hall.
Dong He's face cycled through shades of crimson and violet, a portrait of impotent rage. He was trapped.
Luo Zhen simply cast a curious glance at the floating elder. Early-stage Nascent Soul King, he noted internally. No wonder he can fly.
The call to action was answered almost immediately. Less than ten seconds passed before streaks of colored light began converging on the courtyard from every direction. They descended like vultures, their aerial maneuvers ending in sharp, sudden stops that sent dust puffing up from the cobblestones. One by one, they resolved into the figures of men and women, all alchemists of the Artifact Hall.
And as their eyes fell upon the mountain of Ba Serpent flesh, a single, unified expression crossed their faces: ravenous, all-consuming greed. A primal, covetous heat burned in their gazes as they surged forward, a wave of desperate desire.
The rest was a simple matter of economics.
Luo Zhen, now the center of a frenzied auction, calmly set his price: ten thousand contribution points per segment. The alchemists, practically climbing over one another, emptied their sect tokens without a second thought.
When the dust settled, seventy segments had been sold. In his possession, Luo Zhen now held a staggering seven hundred thousand contribution points.
It was a strange, almost fated coincidence. His spatial ring had held exactly one hundred pieces of the serpent's flesh, along with its potent demon core. His plan all along had been to sell seventy pieces. The remaining thirty, along with the core, were reserved for his little mantis companions. They were a crucial investment in their growth and evolution. And as it turned out, the combined wealth of every alchemist present in the Artifact Hall amounted to just about seven hundred thousand points. Even if he'd wanted to sell more, they were tapped out.
Securing the fortune in his sect token, Luo Zhen walked out of the Artifact Hall, a deep sense of satisfaction warming his chest. Seven hundred thousand points. It was a war chest that would sustain his cultivation for a long, long time. The flesh of the Ba Serpent had proven to be an even greater windfall than he had imagined.
With his finances secured, the path forward was clear. It was time to visit the Scripture Pavilion and invest in his own power.
Brimming with purpose and confidence, Luo Zhen made his way across the sect grounds. Soon, he stood before a truly imposing edifice. The Scripture Pavilion was a grand, majestic hall, radiating an aura of ancient knowledge and formidable power. Guards patrolled its perimeter, and the air itself seemed to hum with the energy of dozens of overlapping defensive formations. Hung centrally above the massive entrance was a simple black plaque, with three powerful characters carved into it: Scripture Pavilion.
He knew the layout by reputation. The building consisted of two floors. The first was a sprawling library open to outer sect disciples like himself. The second, however, was a sanctum reserved exclusively for the inner disciples and the sect's elders. The security was stifling for a reason; this building was the very heart of the Blade Transformation Sect, containing the accumulated wisdom and power of generations. To guard it with anything less than absolute vigilance would be unthinkable.
At the entrance, Luo Zhen stated his purpose to the presiding elder. He was a withered old man, thin as a rail, with a beard as white as sun-bleached bone. After cross-referencing Luo Zhen's identity on a jade slip, he gave a dismissive wave. "Proceed," he rasped, his voice dry as autumn leaves. "But heed the rules. Silence is absolute. Conflict is forbidden. Violators will face severe punishment." He paused, his gaze lingering on Luo Zhen's outer sect robes. "And you are confined to the first floor. Do not even think about ascending the stairs."
"This disciple understands," Luo Zhen replied with a respectful bow, before stepping through the threshold.
He was met with a breathtaking sight. The interior was a vast, cavernous space that seemed to defy the building's external dimensions. Rows upon rows of towering, hardened-wood shelves stretched into the distance, creating a labyrinth of knowledge. Every shelf was packed to capacity with scrolls, tomes, and jade slips, each one a repository of power.
The hall was meticulously organized into sections: Main Cultivation Arts, Movement Techniques, Body Refinement, Saber Arts, and more.
Luo Zhen headed straight for the Main Cultivation Arts. He began his search, pulling manuals from the shelves and absorbing their essence.
Mystic Ice Art: A top-tier, Demon King realm ice-elemental technique. Upon mastery, the user's body produces Mystic Ice True Yuan, capable of freezing entire rivers solid.
Three Yang Scarlet Flame Art: A top-tier, Demon King realm fire-elemental technique. Cultivates a devastatingly destructive Scarlet Flame True Yuan. Can grant the user a Scarlet Flame Body if sufficient refined fire is absorbed during cultivation.
Annihilation Art: An early Emperor-realm technique. Mastery grants the user the ability to form Annihilation Saber Qi, a force of incredible destructive power.
He went through them one by one, impressed. Each art possessed a unique brilliance, a different path to power. The lowest-quality technique on these shelves was still at the late Demon King realm.
If I could learn all of these, absorb their philosophies, and merge their strengths, I could forge a technique far greater than the sum of its parts! He thought, a thrill of excitement running through him.
<"You're overthinking it, Host,"> the System's voice chimed in his mind, its tone flat and unimpressed. It was a splash of ice water on his burgeoning enthusiasm. <"Merging them won't produce the transcendent art you imagine.">
Luo Zhen's brow furrowed. "Oh? And why not?"
<"Because the foundational materials are flawed,"> the System explained. <"Their quality is inherently limited. While merging them would indeed create a superior technique, that technique would still be bound by the limitations of its components. There is a ceiling. It is like a thousand earthworms weaving themselves together. They may become a larger, more complex mass, but they will never, ever become a true dragon.">
<"Take every art on this entire floor,"> it continued. <"Fuse every last one of them. The absolute best you could hope to create would be a single, rudimentary Demon Venerate-level art. Nothing more.">
"You call a Demon Venerate art 'rudimentary'?!" Luo Zhen balked internally.
The Demon Venerate realm was the tier of existence beyond the Demon Emperor. Beings of that caliber were legends, capable of shattering mountains and boiling oceans with a mere whim. Their power was on a scale he could barely comprehend. And the System was dismissing it as pedestrian.
"My grand plan was to synthesize all of this knowledge, and you just sneer at it," Luo Zhen shot back in his mind. "Fine. If you're so smart, you tell me. What should I be learning?"
<"Follow this row of shelves to the very end,"> the System directed. <"On the last shelf, at the very top, you will find a thin, black manual. I suggest you examine that.">
Trusting the guidance, Luo Zhen navigated the maze of shelves. In the designated corner, tucked away on the highest shelf and blanketed in a thick layer of dust, he found it. It was an unassuming, almost pathetic-looking book, bound in black leather and so thin it felt like it contained only a handful of pages.
He blew the dust away, revealing several stark, powerful characters etched into the cover.
Hunyuan Xing Gang Art.
"Hunyuan Xing Gang Art?" Luo Zhen whispered, his eyebrows arching. "Is this supposed to be something special?"
<"Special is an understatement,"> the System replied, a hint of something that might have been pride in its synthesized voice. <"Of every text in this two-story pavilion, that single manual is, without question, the most powerful. It eclipses even your sect's hallowed Blade Transformation Divine Art.">
"Now you're just showing off," Luo Zhen scoffed mentally.
The Blade Transformation Divine Art was the bedrock of the sect, a legendary Emperor-tier technique of unimaginable might. The requirements to even begin studying it were astronomical—one had to be an inner disciple who had already broken through to the Emperor realm. And now the System was claiming this dusty pamphlet was superior? It was laughable.
<"Your skepticism is noted, Host, but it is misplaced,"> the System countered. <"The origin of the Xing Gang Art is not of this world. My analysis indicates that it is a remnant, a fragment of knowledge that trickled down from the Spirit Realm. So I ask you again: do you think it is special?">
"From the... Spirit Realm?"
The words hit Luo Zhen with the force of a physical impact. This world, the Savage Continent, was just one small, lower-level plane in a vast cosmology. Above the Demon Emperor was the Demon Venerate, and above that, the nine-tiered Great Emperor. Only a master who had reached the Ninth Heaven of the Great Emperor realm could even hope to shatter the void and ascend to the legendary Spirit Realm. And even such a peerless master would be considered a mere novice there, where cultivators were graded on scales like Immortal, Nirvana, and Saint. The power of the Spirit Realm was truly beyond his imagination.
And this technique came from there.
Suddenly, the System's disdain for Demon Venerate arts and even the sect's ultimate technique made perfect, terrifying sense.
"To think... something from the Spirit Realm was just sitting here," Luo Zhen breathed, his fingers tracing the characters on the cover with newfound reverence. "I've stumbled upon a true treasure, haven't I?"
<"Indeed,"> the System affirmed. <"Allow me to offer another piece of relevant data, Host. Terms that touch upon the fundamental nature of the cosmos—words like 'Hunyuan' for primordial chaos, 'Taixu' for the great void, or 'Taiji' for the supreme ultimate—are not used frivolously.">
<"Any item, be it a weapon, a technique, or an artifact, that bears such a name is invariably a treasure of the highest order.">
"I understand," Luo Zhen nodded, his heart beginning to hammer in his chest.
With trembling hands, he opened the manual.
The first page was nearly blank, containing only a single, arrogant line of text. As he read it, Luo Zhen's face went dark with indignation.
What kind of pathetic dog are you, to presume you are worthy of the Hunyuan Xing Gang Art?
"This is insane!" he seethed internally. "This has to be the most arrogant technique in existence! This is the introduction?"
<"A likely filter,"> the System mused. <"The creator would not want their magnum opus to be sullied by the hands of the unworthy. It would tarnish its legacy.">
Grumbling, Luo Zhen flipped to the second page. He began to read, and after only a few lines, his anger was replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated shock. He devoured the next page, and the next. The manual was, as he'd noted, incredibly thin. He finished it in less than a minute.
He closed the book, his mind reeling.
"The Hunyuan Xing Gang Art has nine layers... and this is only the first," he whispered, dumbfounded. "But even this first layer... its power is astronomical."
The text described a saber cultivation art of terrifying potency. A master of it wouldn't just be invincible among their peers; they could challenge and slaughter those in higher realms as if it were a casual exercise.
It also described a set of companion weapons: the Hunyuan Xing Gang Sabers. It wasn't a single blade, but an entire arsenal. There were thirty-six in total, corresponding to the celestial number of the Heavenly Dipper. Forged and wielded together, they could unleash saber formations of apocalyptic power. The formations grew in complexity and might with the number of blades used.
Three sabers could form the 'Annihilation Saber Formation.'
Five could form the 'Spirit Slaying.'
Seven could form the 'Seven Luminaries Killing Formation.'
Nine could form the 'Yellow Springs Great Formation.'
Formations for twelve, twenty-four, and all thirty-six blades were also mentioned, but as this manual only contained the first layer of the art, their names and details were omitted. The text stressed that the art's ultimate expression could only be achieved through these devastating formations.
But even without the sabers, the art was monstrous. The moment one began to cultivate it, their body would begin to produce 'Xing Gang Saber Qi.' This energy was described as being so lethally sharp, so fundamentally destructive, that it could shred most opponents of the same level to pieces with but a single strand.
It was, in a word, a beautifully perverse path to absolute power.
But there was a catch. A fatal one.
The very power that made the art so deadly to one's enemies was also deadly to its wielder. The Xing Gang Saber Qi was so potent that it would relentlessly erode the cultivator's own body from the inside out. The deeper one's cultivation, the stronger the Saber Qi became, and the faster their physical form would break down and collapse.
The path of this art was a razor's edge between transcendence and self-destruction.
But for those who could endure it, who could walk that edge without falling, the rewards were limitless. They would possess the power to rampage across the Savage Continent and even carve a bloody path through the Spirit Realm itself.
And that was the true meaning of that first, insulting line. This art wasn't for the talented; it was for the monstrous. For refuse, the only outcome was a gruesome death. Only a true prodigy, a genuine titan among cultivators, was worthy of even attempting it.
"Gods above," Luo Zhen breathed, a slow smile spreading across his face. "The Saber Qi is so destructive it consumes the user... which means an opponent has absolutely no hope of withstanding it." He let out a low laugh, a sound of pure, unadulterated delight.
"And lucky for me, I have the Azure Jade Spirit Body."
The realization dawned on him, bright and brilliant.
"My body can endlessly heal and regenerate itself."
"Even if the Saber Qi tears my flesh apart, even if it grinds my bones to dust... I can just keep cultivating."
"This... this isn't just a powerful technique. It's my destiny. It was practically made for me."
He clutched the thin, black manual to his chest, his mind racing. He glanced back at the endless shelves of lesser arts, a wild, ambitious idea suddenly taking root.
"System," he began, "you said that fusing all the arts on this floor would create a rudimentary Demon Venerate art, right? What if... what if I did that first, and then I fused that new art with the Hunyuan Xing Gang Art? Would that create something even more incredible?"
<"Negative,"> the System replied instantly. <"The fusion function is contingent on parity. It can only occur between components of a similar tier.">
<"You can merge skills, techniques, or items that exist on the same level of power and complexity, and the result will be a success.">
<"But the Hunyuan Xing Gang Art is a relic of the Spirit Realm. Its grade is so astronomically high that your hypothetical 'Demon Venerate' art would be, in comparison, less than insignificant. The gap is too vast for fusion to be possible.">
The System paused, then offered one final, definitive analogy.
<"Two flood dragons can fight, devour each other, and merge into a mightier beast. But tell me, Host, how does a flood dragon merge with an earthworm?">