Even with Shen Yi’s composure, he couldn’t help a sigh of feeling in his heart. This time he’d truly struck it rich.
Three upper-tier demon kings, one extreme-peak demon king, plus a demon emperor. And most of a Nine-Sword Calamity-Ending Grand Formation, along with a bramble hand-string treasure, and several storage treasures not yet fully tallied. In techniques, there was the Parting-Flame Heart-Burning Palm too. The spiritual root he’d most anticipated earlier — that Dragon-Flame Jade Fungus — actually paled a little against all this.
And this didn’t even include Zhang Mingyang’s storage treasure, carried off by the golden dragon. The main thing was that had the golden dragon handed the storage treasure out directly too, it would have been far too obvious. Before he’d truly stepped into the Spirit-Transformation realm, Shen Yi had no intention of exposing his connection to the golden body.
The reason was simple enough. The golden body did all the dirty work, and was bound to offend a great many powerhouses. Unable to find the golden body to vent their anger on, they’d inevitably turn their attention to him… and should some demon emperor come specifically targeting him, that would be no good news at all. Just as the White-Feather Demon Emperor earlier had nearly slain Zhang Mingyang while bearing up under the golden body’s pressure. Shen Yi didn’t think he’d be any stronger than that Perfected Master Zhang.
At the thought, he gathered his mind and quietly opened the panel.
【Slain: Mixed Origin golden-mane boar demon. Total lifespan eighteen thousand nine hundred years; remaining lifespan eight thousand eight hundred years. Absorption complete.】
【Slain: Spirit-Transformation white-feather crane demon. Total lifespan sixty-seven thousand years; remaining lifespan twenty-nine thousand years. Absorption complete.】
【Remaining demon lifespan: fifty-two thousand three hundred years.】
Merely five demons had provided more than half the lifespan of all Song Prefecture’s demons combined. Beings like these — there was no telling how many more the Thousand Demon Den held.
A measure of heat entered Shen Yi’s eyes, but it soon quieted again. Rich as the harvest was, the cost was no small thing either.
Qinghua’s performance had been beyond reproach; it was true that the gap between the golden body’s strength and the demon emperor’s had led to the injury. Repairing it needed a vast amount of accumulated faith. This amounted to gambling with Great Qian’s foundation. Whether the accumulated faith would be exhausted first, or he’d step into the Spirit-Transformation realm first.
And so Shen Yi had no choice but to grow ever more cautious. Every strike had to guarantee sufficient harvest.
With that, he glanced aside. To keep him safe, Chen Zhong had summoned his path infant and was patrolling in every direction with all his strength, ensuring any anomaly would be caught at the first instant. Aqing, meanwhile, drifted warily beside the bamboo grove, flipping through that thick book of his while carefully sketching in his little booklet, brush in hand.
Seeing that only he remained in place, Shen Yi withdrew his gaze and took out the demon corpses one by one. Opening his mouth slightly, he unfurled the blood-transmuting divine ability.
The three upper-tier demon kings provided three hundred and seven drops of demon blood in all; the extreme-peak wild-boar demon, one hundred fifty-three — a touch less than the White Dragon of the same extreme-peak realm before. But the boar was, after all, some eight thousand years younger than the White Dragon, which meant it had reached comparable cultivation in roughly half the time. Enough to show the extraordinary nature of the Thousand Demon Den as a power.
Shen Yi looked expectantly toward the last white crane, and then his brow slowly knit. The ever-victorious blood-transmuting divine ability had, of all things, lost its effect on this White-Feather Demon Emperor… the talent that came from the Core-Nurturing-realm Junior Demon King was gradually falling behind. It went on a while longer before finally refining a single drop of demon blood from it.
“Never mind. Practice with it for now.”
Shen Yi shook his head and took it back into the storage treasure. Too many eyes about — the features of his cultivation were far too conspicuous; no need to reveal them in a place like this. The demon blood had now fed the peacock at the Fourth Transformation, and it wasn’t far from the Junior Demon King at the Eighth Transformation.
He closed his eyes, assuming the posture of regulating his breath and nursing his wounds. He took in the golden bead that had quietly returned, drew it into his sea of qi, and gathered up that exquisite storage treasure in passing. Bidding Qinghua wait at his side, only then did he pour demon lifespan into the body-refinement method.
【Year 1 — the peacock, having tasted demon blood, once again catches that familiar scent, and crowds greedily closer.】
Last time the peacock had swallowed one hundred fifty-five drops of demon blood; he’d thought it would soon be fed full. He hadn’t expected that in mere moments it would break past the two-hundred mark.
【Year 2,720 — the peacock has swallowed two hundred and two drops of demon blood in all, and has finally completed its transformation. Blood-red plumage spreads slowly open, stirring up killing-force thick as substance itself. Your talent-ability grows.】
The more it ate, the stronger it grew. Shen Yi didn’t feel too much heartache over it; rather, having his flesh broken so easily by Zhang Mingyang today lent him a fresh measure of urgency about the body-refinement method’s level. Never mind defeating a true Spirit-Transformation cultivator — he had at least to be able to withstand their spell-arts. Otherwise he’d have to risk his life every single time.
The demon lifespan just come to hand drained away swiftly, the demon blood too depleting at a visible rate. Feeling his ever-toughening body, Shen Yi’s heart eased a little.
The all-but-imperceptible golden eagle actually ate a full two hundred and eighty drops of demon blood, and then it was the turn of that white deer. As with the Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations, the Sixth Transformation was the watershed between a technique’s Minor Mastery and Major Mastery; the consumption was bound to be extraordinary. But seeing the panel’s notice, Shen Yi was still somewhat alarmed.
【Year 24,300 — the white deer swallowed the remaining hundred-odd drops of demon blood, yet has merely whetted its appetite, still waiting, unsated, for your reward.】
【Remaining demon lifespan: twenty-eight thousand years.】
Over four hundred drops of demon blood swept clean away — luckily there was still a demon emperor’s corpse sitting there. Otherwise Shen Yi really couldn’t afford to keep this pack of immortal-demons.
By the time the heat across his body gradually faded, there was, for the moment, no other technique to cultivate. He took out the bramble hand-string, familiarized himself with it a little, then slipped it onto his wrist. The originally somewhat savage hand-string, like a living thing, the instant it touched Shen Yi’s flesh docilely drew in its thorns and coiled together, looking like an utterly unremarkable black vine. This thing could trap even the golden dragon. Before he’d learned a Spirit-Transformation technique, it happened to make up for his lack of control-means. Shen Yi gave his wrist a light twist.
Only then did he take out the nine small swords he’d been fixated on all this while, three of them already broken. This thing had nearly killed the White-Feather Demon Emperor on the spot within its vine-cage; its might went without saying. A pity a few pieces had been damaged by that demon emperor who didn’t know the worth of things.
Shen Yi fiddled with them a few times, watching the flesh at his chest slowly knitting, no longer bleeding freely. He rose and walked toward Aqing.
If he remembered right, he’d heard earlier that this thing had been learned from the Xu family.
“These small swords count as a formation too. Can you make sense of them?” Shen Yi came to a stop beside him.
“Uh.” Aqing hurriedly put away his paper and brush, turned to look at what was in Grandmaster Shen’s hand, and then went silent for an instant.
“I…”
He lifted his head, only to find no stray thoughts in Shen Yi’s clear eyes — merely a measure of curiosity. The other trusted him so, had never once even asked after his identity, and had guarded him the whole way.
Under that gaze, Aqing lowered his eyes slightly and pressed his lips together.
The Grandmaster probably didn’t know yet that this Nine-Sword Calamity-Ending Grand Formation was once the very thing his family had prided itself on most.
He raised his head and smiled. “I… I can make sense of some of it.”
(End of Chapter 272)