14: Chapter 14 Corpses and Remains

Before Li Zhengyang could figure out the magic core...

[High-concentration fluctuations detected 200 meters ahead.]

[It is recommended that the host proceed to investigate.]

Li Zhengyang stared at this line of text for two seconds.

The system had never actively issued a prompt before, which meant there was something good hidden ahead—either a high-level magic beast or some area where spiritual qi gathered.

Flicking the blood off his mountain-piercing spear, he stepped over the scattered limbs of the Red-Armored Spiders and headed deeper into the tunnel.

Pushing forward another two hundred meters, he reached a dead end.

There was no way forward, but wind was blowing out from a crack in the wall.

The crack was extremely well-hidden, covered by a thick layer of old cobwebs. No wonder the previous two teams that met their ends here hadn't noticed it.

He turned sideways and squeezed himself inside.

The rock wall was icy cold, and the deeper he went, the stronger the spiritual qi fluctuations became.

After walking about thirty meters, his vision suddenly opened up.

The crack connected to a natural cave.

A few ore deposits on the cave ceiling illuminated the entire space with a cold light.

The first thing Li Zhengyang saw was something lying in the center.

A corpse.

To be precise, a skeleton.

The bones already showed a faint luster. Judging by the bone density alone, this person must have been at least a Great Martial Master before they died.

A large hole was torn through the chest of the skeleton, and seven or eight ribs were completely broken, with jagged edges.

In life, they had been pierced through the heart and lungs by some terrifying creature in a single blow, leaving them no time to react.

Scattered to the left of the skeleton was an alloy spear broken into two pieces, while the right hand tightly clutched a yellowed leather booklet.

Li Zhengyang walked over and crouched down.

His gaze fell upon the leather booklet. Four words were written on the cover: "Mountain-Splitting Spear Arts".

A low-grade Mysterious-tier spear technique.

Martial techniques were divided into four tiers: Heaven, Earth, Mysterious, and Yellow.

The generic styles circulating on the market didn't even count as Yellow-tier. Aside from entering a martial arts university or inheriting from a prestigious family, one had to purchase cultivation methods to learn them.

A low-grade Mysterious-tier cultivation method would start at least at three hundred thousand great xia currency if put up for auction. Moreover, this was a spear technique, which was exactly to Li Zhengyang's liking.

He reached out to take the booklet.

Just as his fingers touched the leather page, the system popped up another prompt.

[Fragmented cultivation method scroll detected: Mountain-Splitting Spear Arts (Volume One)]

[New system function unlocked: Cultivation Method Deduction]

[Description: The host can consume currency or vitality to directly absorb cultivation methods, reaching perfection without needing to practice.]

[Required consumption: 100,000 great xia currency / 1,000 vitality points.]

Li Zhengyang's hand paused in mid-air.

A new function—spending money to directly learn skills. It saved years or even decades of bitter cultivation, reaching perfection in a single step.

This was an incredibly good deal!

A low-grade Mysterious-tier spear technique was worth at least three hundred thousand on the market. Spending one hundred thousand to reach perfection was an absolute steal.

The only problem was that he currently had no money in his card.

He had just spent a large sum earlier, so he only had some loose change left in his pocket. No money, but he could pay with vitality instead. His current vitality value was 7,328. Deducting 1,000 points would leave him with 6,328. It wouldn't drop his realm by much, at most making his Protective Qi a bit thinner.

In exchange, he would get a perfected combat killer move. No matter how he calculated it, it was a bargain.

Confirm absorption.

The numbers on the system panel flickered, and his vitality dropped.

Immediately following that was a massive influx of information into his brain.

Starting stance, thrust, sweep, upward strike, Collapse Technique, Twist Technique.

Multiple basic force-exertion postures, seven sets of killer move combinations, and the force-exertion paths and vitality circulation trajectories of all the moves were imprinted into his muscle memory like they were carved with a knife.

Li Zhengyang stood up, gripped the mountain-piercing spear with one hand, and thrust it forward.

It was just a simple straight thrust.

The tip of the spear tore through the air, producing a sharp sonic boom.

A blast of energy shot out from the spearhead, plowing a half-inch-deep white mark onto the stone wall three meters away.

No extra astral qi was infused; it was purely muscle force combined with the spear technique's skill.

With this spear technique, his actual combat lethality had at least doubled.

Satisfying.

Sheathing his spear, he cast his gaze back onto the skeleton.

His gaze shifted downward, stopping at the skeleton's right hand, where a dusty ring was worn.

Li Zhengyang didn't hesitate. He directly slipped the ring off and wiped the dust off with his clothes. It was a space ring.

A low-grade item, with a capacity of only one or two cubic meters inside.

But having a space ring made things so much more convenient. Normally, carrying a large tactical backpack for missions got in the way during fights.

With this, the weight issue was solved instantly.

He collected the pile of Red-Armored Spider legs from outside into the ring, and the weight on his back vanished instantly.

"Thanks, brother."

Li Zhengyang patted the skeleton's shoulder and turned to leave the cave.

By the time he crawled out of the abandoned tunnel, the sky had gone completely dark.

The night wind of Beishan blew painfully against his face.

Ordinary mission teams would find a place to camp as soon as it got dark, never daring to wander around in the wild.

Night was the home ground of magic beasts, where sneak attacks were impossible to guard against.

But Li Zhengyang didn't stop.

He had taken three D-rank missions tonight. He had only cleared one so far, and the remaining two were both in this Beishan area.

Since he was already here, he might as well finish them all in one go.

Over the next two hours, he cleared out two low-level magic beast nests nearby.

His methods were swift, taking almost no effort.

Just on his way back, the wind direction changed.

A strong, earthy smell mingled in the air.

Li Zhengyang stopped in his tracks and looked toward his front-left, following the scent. Behind a giant boulder fifty meters away, two dark silhouettes lay on the ground.

They were shaped like water buffaloes, their backs covered in uneven, granite-like hard lumps.

Rock-Spine Beasts.

C-rank mission targets, Rank Three magic beasts.

Thick-skinned and fleshy with extremely powerful frontal impact force, they were equivalent to the level of a human Great Martial Master. Ordinary Martial Masters would have to take a detour upon encountering them.

But he had just absorbed the "Mountain-Splitting Spear Arts", and facing these things, he really wanted to test its quality.

Li Zhengyang lowered his body, circled to the downwind side, and used the cover of the rock piles to sneak within ten meters of the Rock-Spine Beasts.

The two beasts were feasting on the carcass of some unknown animal. Their loud chewing sounds drowned out the surrounding noise.

Vitality flowed along his meridians into the spear shaft, coating the metal surface with a layer of astral qi.

Starting stance, Collapse Technique.

His body instantly crossed the ten-meter distance.

Hearing the sound of wind, the Rock-Spine Beast in front had just raised its head when the tip of the spear arrived.

The spearhead pierced in through its lower jaw.

Power erupted along the spear shaft, directly crushing its skull.

Without even a scream, the Rank Three magic beast kicked its four legs and collapsed to the ground with a loud crash.

The second one reacted. Its massive body twisted violently, and lowering its head to raise its back armor, it charged toward Li Zhengyang at extreme speed.

Li Zhengyang did not retreat. Drawing back his long spear, he used the momentum of pulling it out to spin around, executing a sweep in the process.

Twist Technique.

The spear shaft struck the joint of the Rock-Spine Beast's forelimb, and astral qi erupted.

Over a thousand catties of impact force directly snapped its front leg. The Rock-Spine Beast lost its balance, its massive body tumbling forward, its chin slamming heavily against the rocks.

Before it could get back up, the long spear thrust down from above, pinning it dead to the ground.

Two Rank Three magic beasts, one after the other, in less than ten seconds.

With the cooperation of a Mysterious-tier spear technique, killing monsters above his rank was no longer a dream.

Li Zhengyang pulled out his short blade, skillfully cut off the tail stingers, and split open the heads of the two magic beasts along the way.

Good luck—he dug out two beast cores.

Wiping off the blood, he threw them into his ring.

Business was concluded.

He found a rock to sit on and unlocked his phone.

Three D-rank missions: one hundred and fifty thousand for the Red-Armored Spider, and fifty thousand each for the other two, totaling two hundred and fifty thousand.

The long-term bounty for the Rock-Spine Beast was thirty thousand per beast, so sixty thousand for two.

That was already three hundred and ten thousand.

He also had three Rank Three beast cores in his pocket—one salvaged from the Red-Armored Spider, plus these two just now. According to market prices, a Rank Three beast core conservatively started at forty thousand.

Three of them would be one hundred and twenty thousand.

Three hundred and ten thousand plus one hundred and twenty thousand.

Four hundred and thirty thousand.

This money came too fast, so fast that he was a bit unaccustomed to it.

A week ago, he was still worrying about his daily living expenses, and now he had made over four hundred thousand in a single night.

Patting his pocket, he stood up and walked down the mountain.

Fortunately, the lobby of the East City Martial Artist Office was open twenty-four hours a day.

At the front desk, Liu Ting was dozing off with her cheek resting in her hand, her head nodding up and down.

A pile of things dumped onto the counter with a clatter, shocking her so much that she bounced right up.

"Who's there?!"

Liu Ting rubbed her eyes.

Standing in front of her was a person in a black T-shirt, carrying a spear, with the smell of blood lingering on him.

Li Zhengyang.

"Three D-rank missions, plus the bounty for two Rock-Spine Beasts. All the materials are here. Settle the bill."

Liu Ting froze for two seconds, then looked down at the counter.

The leg shells of Red-Armored Spiders, the pincers of Sand-Tail Scorpions, the tails of Iron-Toothed Rats, and next to them, two tails with bony barbs.

Those were the tail stingers of Rock-Spine Beasts, the C-rank mission targets.

The way Liu Ting looked at Li Zhengyang completely changed when she raised her head.

A single Martial Master, all by himself, in one night, had swept through all the low-to-mid-level magic beasts in that Beishan area.

Was he fucking stocking up?

"Verify it." Li Zhengyang tapped the counter.

Liu Ting hurriedly began counting, scanning codes, and entering them into the system.

"No problem. Three missions, totaling three hundred and ten thousand."

"Transfer the money."

His phone vibrated; three hundred and ten thousand had arrived in his account.

As soon as the money came in, Li Zhengyang immediately began planning how to spend it.

As for those three beast cores...

It wasn't worth selling these through the office's official channels.

The office would take a cut, drive down the price, and the process was troublesome. If he wanted to sell them for a good price, he had to find a shop that specialized in buying spiritual materials.

He walked out of the lobby, stood on the steps, and pulled out his phone. He typed "spiritual material acquisition" into the search bar.

A row of advertisements popped up on the page. He quickly scrolled down, skipping those flashy chain stores, and locked his gaze on an inconspicuous piece of information.

[Wanbao Pavilion]

[Address: No. 14 West City Old Street.]

[Purchase Rules: All grades of beast cores and spiritual materials accepted. No questions asked about their origin, cash settlement. Better prices for large quantities.]

"No questions asked, cash settlement." These words were exactly what he wanted.