21: Chapter 21 Green Snake Loves to Learn
"First, I'll just lie down for a day."
"Argh, I must have been infected by that guy Sancai!"
"Xu Qing, oh Xu Qing, you can't be like that useless snake."
Three days later.
The two snakes lay paralyzed on the island in the center of the lake and the shore, respectively, soaking up the sun.
He had completely become a useless snake.
"No, this won't do. I need to level up my skills."
Xu Qing crawled back to the cave with difficulty, looking at the still unconscious Ha Hei inside.
He was going to start experimenting with how to use a human sandbag.
"First, what I need to level up is Heal."
The scales all over his body glowed slightly, and a faint green light enveloped Ha Hei.
The wounds on Ha Hei's body began to Heal slowly.
"Rapid-fire Heal!"
"Heal, Heal, Heal!"
The burnt skin began to scab and fall off, and fresh pink granulation tissue began to squirm and grow.
[Ding! Proficiency requirements met.]
[Heal Lv1 has been upgraded to Heal Lv2.]
The healing effect has been greatly improved.
However, his lower body was still smooth; there was still no sign of his three legs growing back.
"As expected, Lv2 Heal still can't achieve limb regrowth."
Except for his three legs, all of Ha Hei's injuries had fully recovered.
"Where is this?"
"Aaaah, that weird green snake!"
Ha Hei snapped out of it and hurriedly conjured a weak Escape Light, trying to flee the Snake Cave, only to be whipped back by Xu Qing's tail.
"Lightning Strike, Lightning Strike, Lightning Strike!"
Xu Qing unleashed one after another without hesitation, shocking Ha Hei until his whole body trembled.
It must be said that Ha Hei's Body Cultivator Lv3 skill was truly resilient; he endured twenty Lightning Strikes with his bare body before finally passing out.
The newly grown flesh became mangled again, emitting a burnt stench.
"Heal, Heal, Heal..."
"Where is this?"
"Aaaah, that weird green snake!"
"Lightning Strike, Lightning Strike, Lightning Strike..."
"Heal, Heal, Heal..."
"Where is this?"
"Aaaah, that..."
[Ding! Proficiency requirements met.]
[Lightning Strike Lv2 has been upgraded to Lightning Strike Lv3.]
"Heal..."
[Ding! Proficiency requirements met.]
[Heal Lv2 has been upgraded to Heal Lv3.]
"Where is this..."
"Light..."
"He..."
"Whe..."
...
Xu Qing was quite excited at first, but he soon became numb.
He was merely repeating the actions mechanically.
"Where is this?"
"Aaaah, that..."
Xu Qing knocked him unconscious with a sweep of his tail and fell into deep thought.
Heal and Lightning Strike no longer leveled up; even with constant repetition, nothing changed.
Is Lv3 the level cap?
Could it be that the proficiency provided by each person has a limit?
Xu Qing hurriedly released Poison Gas, attempting to level up that skill.
After poisoning for a long time, the level still hadn't changed.
As expected, there is a limit to the proficiency one person can provide.
Using a skill allows one to increase proficiency through practice.
For example, he could use a skill continuously, and even without a target, the level would rise from Lv1 to Lv2.
If he wanted to continue improving, he would need to learn through combat.
And fighting someone is like finding a teacher to learn from.
This teacher's knowledge is finite; they can only teach you so much. Once everything is taught, the skill can no longer be upgraded.
The higher the Realm of the 'test', the more knowledge it provides.
Therefore, by learning from beings in higher Realms, level progression becomes much faster.
In that case...
I'll have to change sandbags frequently in the future.
Xu Qing spat out a ball of Green Fire, enveloping Ha Hei, who was still shivering in his coma on the ground.
Perhaps he was having a nightmare.
[Ding! Killed a Foundation Establishment Early Stage Cultivator.]
[Dao Cultivation +5, evolution points +10]
[Obtained Item: Fruit of Fear]
This is just too practical!
After being squeezed dry, he can still be recycled to continue providing Dao Cultivation and evolution points.
Xu Qing felt like he had missed out on a fortune.
Killing opponents directly before was such a waste and a pity; just thinking about it made his heart ache enough to want to hit a wall.
"Let's see what good things the System rewarded."
[Fruit of Fear] Condensed from extreme fear. After use, there is a high probability of obtaining the skill Fearsome Might Lv1.
[Fearsome Might Lv1] Upon use, inflicts the Fear status on a locked target.
...?
"I feel like I'm being subtly insulted."
"Whatever, as long as the skill is practical."
Xu Qing didn't care about how the skill was obtained; he was a pragmatist.
After the Fusion ended, Xu Qing began to take stock of his gains.
That's right, killing human Cultivators rewarded not only items from the System but also Storage Pouches!
It's simply much more cost-effective than killing demons or monsters.
If you can kill humans, who would bother killing demons? They're hard to fight and give so little.
It's just too pathetic.
"Let me see what good things there are."
Three Storage Pouches were lined up in front of him; he opened them one by one, starting with Jie Zi's.
Bottles of Medicinal Pills, books, clothes, and various bits and pieces like multi-colored stones of different sizes, Magical Artifacts, and so on.
Jie Lü's also contained similar items.
Ha Hei's Storage Pouch was the simplest, containing only multi-colored stones.
Xu Qing took out a small multi-colored stone, looked it over for a while, and then had a sudden realization.
"Could this be the legendary Spirit Stone!"
Xu Qing picked up the stone and circulated his Cultivation Technique.
Sure enough, the speed of his Dao Cultivation increased significantly.
The color of the Spirit Stone faded, and its weight decreased slightly.
Xu Qing looked at the Spirit Stones of varying sizes and felt a bit uncertain.
According to his knowledge of web novels from his past life, Spirit Stones should be uniform in size and counted by the piece.
But these Spirit Stones were all different sizes, so counting them by the piece seemed unreliable.
"Could it be that the Spirit Stones in this world are like silver, measured by weight?"
Xu Qing took out two Spirit Stones of different sizes.
As expected, the larger one was noticeably heavier.
He took out all the Spirit Stones, piled them into a small heap, and stored them in his Spatial Pupil.
Indeed, it's more reassuring to keep things like money in one's eye.
Underage snakes, please do not imitate this; no, adult snakes shouldn't imitate this either.
"As for the Medicinal Pills, there's no way to determine their effects."
Xu Qing looked at the pile of books and decided to study.
Although he had been in this world for a while, his understanding of it was limited to a few small hills.
If he were to transform in the future and go to the human world to scavenge, how could he know nothing about the human Cultivation World?
Xu Qing opened the first book.
《The Fox Demon Fell in Love with Me, Vol. 1》
...
Perhaps his understanding of the human Cultivation World was about to slide in a strange direction.
It's not like he wanted to know about this aspect of humans!
He slowly flipped it open with his tail and, reading ten lines at a glance with his snake eyes, began to read with great interest.
He finished it quickly and excitedly opened the next one.
《Guide to Identifying Spirit Medicines and Their Medicinal Properties》
...
"Why did it suddenly become so serious!"
"And where's the second volume!"
Xu Qing searched through all the books and confirmed it: there was no second volume.
For the first time, Xu Qing felt an urgent desire to transform.
"Forget it, let's just study peacefully."