Five minutes later.
Zhao Xuan slowly opened his eyes.
After glancing at his attribute panel, his expression suddenly brightened.
Fifty points!!!
Yes—just five minutes.
He hadn't done anything at all.
He merely ate one petal of the cactus flower, and his proficiency shot up by fifty points.
It was practically like getting free money!
And that wasn't all—
Zhao Xuan could feel it clearly.
The effect of that single flower petal was still taking effect, little by little.
The Armament Haki within his body was still active—
And it was the self-sustaining kind of activity, not one that required him to expend stamina or mental energy.
"At this rate of decay, it should last for a full day!"
Good stuff!
The cactus flower's effect had completely surpassed Zhao Xuan's expectations.
After staring at the remaining seven petals for a while, he carefully packed them away.
Then—
He took out a Monkey King Fruit and began eating heartily.
Money well spent, indeed.
As soon as the fruit went down, a refreshing coolness surged up into his mind.
The fatigue in his head was swept away in an instant, and his mental focus sharpened.
Zhao Xuan immediately began circulating his meditation technique, quickly absorbing the fruit's medicinal power.
Half an hour later—
He opened his eyes again.
Dingdong—
You've meditated in a special environment for a while. Your mental power has improved.
Spirit +1.
"Hiss—!!"
"A full point of mental power!"
Zhao Xuan's joy deepened.
"Totally worth the money! If only I could eat Monkey King Fruits like those two-hundred-thousand-a-piece Spirit-Nourishing Fruits, I'd never have to worry about my weak spiritual power again! Imagine—one hundred fruits a day, that's a hundred points of spirit right there!"
…What nonsense!
Who the hell could afford a hundred fruits a day!?
Zhao Xuan shook his head violently, tossing the unrealistic thought aside.
He didn't sleep that night.
At dawn, Zhao Xuan went out early.
Instead of heading straight for the Lingyin Mountains as he'd planned yesterday, he stopped by the Ability Users Guild first.
After careful consideration, he picked out five bounty missions—all requiring the slaying of Tier-5 Land Kings.
Each mission was located somewhere within the Lingyin range, varying in difficulty from low to high: two low-grade Tier-5s, two mid-grade, and one high-grade.
Despite the differences in difficulty, there was one thing all five creatures had in common—
They were high-attack, low-defense types.
Perfect targets for him.
The deposits for Tier-5 missions were steep—five hundred thousand each, totaling 2.5 million.
But to Zhao Xuan, who now held more than two hundred million in funds, that was pocket change.
Where did that money come from?
Half of it came from selling the Tier-4 Land King Crystals he had obtained from the desert stone statues last night—thirty-nine in total, at three million apiece, netting him 117 million.
The other hundred million came from selling the bodies of the Desert Stone Statues.
That's right—
Even though those corpses were made of rock and inedible, they were still valuable!
The staff told him their bodies were composed of extremely hard stone, not inferior to top-grade Tier-4 blue bricks.
When Zhao Xuan heard that, he was ecstatic.
So—
He dove right back into the relic space, hauling out corpse after corpse of those Desert Stone Statues.
With the ten-thousand-point physique granted by his Dragon Form, moving twenty-ton statues was a breeze.
After an hour of nonstop hauling, he'd moved almost all of them out—
Except for the ones forming his stone-statue base, of course. He wasn't insane enough to demolish his own house for cash.
With more than two hundred million in hand, Zhao Xuan's confidence skyrocketed.
With a wave of his hand, he bought fifty Monkey King Fruits in one go.
"Whenever I've got nothing to do, I'll just munch on one," he thought.
Leaving the Guild, Zhao Xuan headed straight north out of Hang City, passing through the northern gate and onto the road toward the Lingyin Mountains.
Not long after he left—
Swish, swish, swish—
A five-man squad exited the city as well.
The squad consisted of one Tier-6 Grandmaster and four Tier-5 Masters.
Once outside the city's control range, one of the Tier-5s pulled out a small burlap pouch, a common enough sight—
Then activated his Devil Fruit ability.
His nose suddenly enlarged and blackened, resembling that of a hound.
He sniffed the pouch, and under the watchful eyes of his companions, started moving rapidly toward the mountains.
The others followed closely behind.
If Zhao Xuan were present, he'd have recognized that the burlap pouch in the man's hand was the very one he had used to store his Land King Crystals.
That pouch—
Should have still been in the Guild's hands.
Zhao Xuan's speed was astonishing.
Upon entering the Lingyin Mountains, he activated the Azure Dragon Fruit's power, entering Partial Dragon Form.
With fivefold attribute amplification, combined with Shave and Moonwalk, he streaked through the forest like a phantom.
Before long, he reached the deeper zone—territory of mid-tier Land Kings.
He immediately dispelled the Dragon Form, returning to his human shape to avoid alerting stronger beasts.
Moving through the dense forest, he soon arrived at the first mission site—the easiest one, and the one with the smallest bounty.
Target: a Tier-5 Direwolf.
Once he reached the creature's hunting grounds, Zhao Xuan retrieved a Tier-4 beast corpse from his relic space.
With a quick slash, he opened it up, letting the blood spill freely.
The thick scent of blood quickly spread.
Wolves had excellent noses—especially one that had reached Tier-5.
Sure enough—
Rustle, rustle—
The bushes trembled.
Two green, glowing eyes appeared in the dark.
"Hooked," Zhao Xuan thought, smiling.
Then he deliberately flared his aura—
All of it, but without using his Dragon Fruit powers.
It was a bait tactic. Wolves were cautious by nature—if he seemed too weak, the beast might suspect a trap and retreat.
His gamble paid off.
The direwolf, which had been watching from the grass, narrowed its eyes, the glow of caution replaced by arrogance.
Then it lunged.
"Whoosh!"
In a blink, it was right before him.
Zhao Xuan put on a show of panic, stumbling backward and falling flat on his backside.
"ROAR!!"
Seeing this, the direwolf shed its last bit of wariness.
It let out a howl and pounced.
Five meters!
Four!
Three!
Two!
One!
Just as its claws were about to strike—
An overwhelming sense of danger flooded its instincts.
Too late.
From the fallen "weakling" came a burst of bloodline pressure.
Boom!
A terrifying gust erupted.
Zhao Xuan's fist—wreathed in Armament Haki and lightning—smashed upward into the wolf's jaw.
The sheer force was monstrous.
With one hand, Zhao Xuan could lift a Tier-4 Desert Statue weighing over twenty tons.
The direwolf's body wasn't nearly so durable—its strength lay in speed, not defense.
Crack!
Its jaw caved in, fangs biting through its own tongue.
"AWOOOO—!!"
The wolf screamed—
Boom!
Another punch followed, slamming its skull into the dirt.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He didn't stop.
One punch after another rained down.
Dozens of blows later, the direwolf's howls dwindled to weak whimpers… then silence.
Zhao Xuan exhaled. "Finally dead."
Just then—
BOOM!!!!
Five black energy shells rained from the sky.
"Not good!"
His face paled.
Without hesitation, he dove into the relic space.
A split-second later—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The mountain exploded.
Fire and smoke surged high into the air.
Shockwaves sliced through the forest, leveling trees in every direction.
Where once a lush hill stood, now there was only barren wasteland.
Below, the five attackers watched the destruction with narrowed eyes.
"One Tier-5 energy shell and four Tier-4 shells… that kid's definitely dead, right?"
A bald Tier-5 man grunted.
"Don't take chances," the Tier-6 leader said coldly. "Zhu Si, fire another Tier-5 shell."
"What!? Another one? Boss, a Tier-5 shell costs nine hundred thousand!"
"Shut it! Kill the kid first—then we'll be rich. The Guild's overseer said he might have a spatial relic core. That's worth tens of billions!"
At those words, greed flashed across every face.
Zhu Si no longer hesitated. He loaded another shell—
BOOM!!!!!
The mountaintop was blasted flat, the explosion rivaling a Tier-6's full-force strike.
"Now he's dead for sure."
"No one survives that."
They waited, watching the smoke.
No movement.
Growing impatient, they split into pairs and climbed the ruined slope.
Visibility was low, dust thick.
They scoured the area—nothing. No body, no relic, no trace.
Eventually, they split up completely.
Then—
One of them froze.
Behind him, a rift-shaped doorway shimmered into existence.
"A relic entrance!"
His eyes lit up.
"So that's why we couldn't find him—he hid inside!"
A spatial relic core!
His breath quickened.
He opened his mouth to call the others—
But before he could—
A blood-soaked figure staggered out of the rift.
Zhao Xuan looked battered, covered in soot and wounds.
The man's greed instantly overwhelmed his reason.
Before Zhao Xuan could retreat—
He lunged into the rift after him.
The moment he stepped inside—
BOOM!!!!!
A gale slammed into him.
"Not good!!!"
He barely managed to raise his arms and coat them in Armament Haki—
Crack!
Both arms shattered.
Before he could even scream—
BANG!
Zhao Xuan's lightning-wreathed fist crushed half his face.
"AAAHHHHH!!"
A blinding flash—
Thud!
A kick blasted him dozens of meters away, where he lay broken and coughing blood.
Tap, tap, tap—
Zhao Xuan appeared before him, stepping through the dust.
One stomp—two, three, four—shattering his limbs.
Then he grabbed the man by the collar, voice cold:
"How many of you are there?"
The man howled in agony, unable to answer.
Zhao Xuan's finger turned into a spear, stabbing through his ear.
"Answer me. Tell me, and I'll let you die quickly."
"F-five… five of us… counting me… one six-tier… four Tier-5s…"
"Why attack me?" Zhao Xuan demanded.
"Be-because… the Guild… Manager Sun said… you might have… a spatial relic core…"
Before the man could finish, Zhao Xuan twisted—
Crack!
His neck snapped.
"So it wasn't the Cult of Demons after all," Zhao Xuan muttered. "Just a pack of greedy bandits."
He tossed the corpse aside, pulled out a pouch of Mid-Grade Energy Liquid, and drank deeply.
Once his stamina was restored, Zhao Xuan stepped out of the relic again.
He looked toward the mountain slope, eyes cold.
"Men die for wealth, birds die for food. Since you've set your sights on me—"
He clenched his fists.
"—I'll make sure none of you leave alive."
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