252: Chapter 252 Increase in Strength

Nie Ning's body moved through the water like a swimming shrimp, quickly catching up to the fleeing Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard.

The temperature around the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard dropped, and immediately, schools of fish made of ice appeared, opening their mouths full of sharp teeth to bite at Nie Ning.

Seeing this, wind elements surged around Nie Ning, forming a Storm Tornado that drove the water current, pulling all the ice fish into it.

The ice fish were unable to escape, and a large number of them self-destructed like small bombs.

The balance of the Storm Tornado was broken and dissipated, and the ice fish's self-destruction also kicked up mud and rocks under the water, churning the seawater into a murky mess.

Perhaps knowing it couldn't outrun Nie Ning, the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard in the murky water turned around, its entire body covered in ice to form a drill, charging straight at Nie Ning.

The Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard was extremely fast; seeing this, Nie Ning raised the long saber in his hand, and the god-forbidden ring on his wrist flew out, snapping onto the handguard of the xueyan bladeless.

Instantly, surging energy poured into the xueyan bladeless, turning it into a blade of white light.

Nie Ning slashed upward from below, and a ten-meter-long massive blade qi cut through the seawater, colliding with the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard in the blink of an eye.

Immediately, the ice on the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard's head shattered, and the blade qi drove straight in, slashing into the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard's mouth, splitting it in two from the middle with its sharp edge.

Then the blade qi exploded, and the terrifying energy cleared out the seawater within hundreds of meters.

'It's actually not dead; it truly is a late-stage Rank 4 exotic beast.'

When the seawater rushed back, Nie Ning looked at the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard within it, a look of caution appearing on his face.

At this moment, the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard's mouth was completely blown apart, with only shreds of flesh still connected to its head.

But such a blow did not kill the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard; it rolled in agony in the water, churning the seawater into a murky mess as red blood mingled with it.

The Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard was a late-stage Rank 4 exotic beast, and combined with the naturally strong body of an exotic beast, its physical toughness was indeed not to be underestimated.

It could only be said that the xueyan bladeless was indeed a bit trashy, not quite seeming like equipment produced by a major power like the Eye of Astral.

Although the amplification was already considerable, aside from its hardness, it wasn't as powerful as imagined.

Nie Ning guessed that the xueyan bladeless might really just be a semi-finished piece of equipment.

Gazing at the rolling Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard in the distance, Nie Ning reached out his left hand and made a grasping motion; instantly, a large number of Ice Chains appeared from all directions, wrapping around the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard.

But at this moment, the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard's strength was unexpectedly immense, its twisting body dragging the Ice Chains, which were snapped one by one under this terrifying force.

Seeing this, Nie Ning gripped the long saber in his hand again, assuming a lunge-and-thrust stance, and charged before the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard at extreme speed.

The xueyan bladeless thrust out with lightning, sinking directly into the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard's head.

The Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard cried out in pain, increasing the intensity of its rolling.

At this moment, the muscles on Nie Ning's arm bulged, followed by a powerful upward swing, and the xueyan bladeless tore through the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard's skull.

The blade, flickering with lightning, brought up a spray of blood.

The Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard's body jolted and slowly stopped struggling, leaving only instinctive twitching.

Nie Ning kicked off the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard's head, and his body drifted slowly backward.

After waiting for a while, the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard's body became still and then sank to the seabed like a stone.

Seeing the Pig-Cage Snake-Lizard dead, Nie Ning didn't delay much and began to harvest the materials from its body.

As a Rank 4 exotic beast, most of the materials on its body were useful.

Flesh can increase blood qi, bone armor can be used to craft equipment, some internal organs can be used for medicine, and the crystal core can be used as a substitute for magic crystals to charge formations and other things.

Even the skin, which was easily pierced by the xueyan bladeless, would be an excellent material for making defensive gear in the outside world.

It took a full two hours for Nie Ning to remove all the materials.

After all, things were different now than in the beginning; back then he didn't know much, and many materials couldn't be used directly by him.

Now, he was only afraid of not having enough materials and wanted to stuff everything into his spatial tool.

Even if he couldn't use it now, no one knew if it would be needed in the future; it was always better to be over-prepared.

...

Two months later.

At this time, Nie Ning was sitting on a piece of floating ice, eating roasted meat and gazing into the distance.

Having stayed in the sea alone for so long, Nie Ning's face was full of numbness and exhaustion.

Every time he thought of Heloise and Sensen, a sense of powerless dejection inevitably rose in his heart.

To counter this, he could only use the hunting of exotic beasts to numb himself, preventing himself from thinking about those terrible things.

[Class: Sky Knight (Peak), Third-Ring Wizard (Peak)]

[Talent: Supernatural Adaptability]

[Bloodline: ??? (Not Activated)]

[Derived Traits: Strange Beast Body, Elemental Spring, Power of the Tribe, Intermediate Self-Healing (Corrupted), Power of a Hundred Beasts (Corrupted), Advanced Spiritual Power Amplification, Thought Acceleration, Malice Perception, Elementary Shapeshifting, Advanced Chaos Affinity]

[Derived Skills: ..., Assisting Evil, Advanced Chaos Manipulation (Corrupted), Light Break Impact, Explosive Fireball, Ice Shackles, Crimson Flame Fire Feather, Sonic Boom Heavy Strike, Light-Shadow Slash, Storm Tornado, Ice Explosion Ring, Wooden Armor, Cold Wave Invasion]

[Cultivation Method: ..., Blood Sun Qi Circulation Method, Spirit Dream Phantom Sound Method, Stairway to Godhood]

[Brand Witchcraft: Elemental Rotation Technique]

[Skills: ...Blood Burst Technique (Proficient), Ice Blue Wing Technique (Great Success), Earth Spirit Puppet (Great Success), Vine Entanglement (Great Success), Rainstorm Condensation Technique (Proficient), Blood Cloud Escape (Great Success)]

After two months of slaughter, Nie Ning felt his physical body was extraordinarily strong, having roughly reached the level of middle Rank 4.

Perhaps because the gene duplication rate was too high, his cultivation speed didn't increase much, only about 30% higher than before.

If the cultivation efficiency when he left Ska City was 1, then the current cultivation efficiency was about 2.6, which was considered one of the biggest gains of this trip.

Although his current strength on the wizard side couldn't be improved, because he didn't need to cultivate mana, all his energy was focused on the knight side.

His knight cultivation had reached the peak of Rank 3, and even his god-forbidden ring had reached the limit value for Rank 3.

Unfortunately, the materials for making the god-forbidden ring had been given to Heloise; if he wanted to remake it or upgrade the current one, he would need to find other materials.

And many of those materials didn't even exist in this world.

Back then, he had relied on the Nales Church to collect more than half, so where he would go next naturally went without saying.

After hunting a large number of sea beasts, Nie Ning had also obtained many skills.

However, because the strength of the exotic beasts in the sea wasn't high—most were creatures below Rank 2—these skills were almost useless.

On the other hand, the 'Elementary Shapeshifting' trait he obtained was quite good; it could change his appearance and body shape to a certain extent. This was a skill Nie Ning obtained when he killed a creature called the Deep Sea Ghost Octopus.

...