Su Mo never expected the negotiation to go so smoothly this time. It was largely thanks to the help from his fellow townsman; otherwise, those Beast Kings would definitely have forced him to stay.
“Hmm, where should I go next?”
“The most important thing now is to find a way to leave this place. But Chuyuan is different from other ruins—it’s itself located inside a ruin.”
“Uh… so it’s all about going with the flow, huh?”
Su Mo smacked his lips, thinking maybe he should check out the other three cities.
The things left by Yu Fuzi seemed to be related to Ye Qingyi. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have had such a special reaction to this body’s blood.
If that was the case… was it possible that she was the reincarnation of a celestial being? Because of his unique physique, she unknowingly exchanged souls with him to devour him and strengthen her original body…
Hahahaha, what a ridiculous plot.
Su Mo secretly mocked the idea, dismissing these useless thoughts.
Well, one should be content wherever they are. Since he couldn’t leave for now, he might as well take the time to explore this unknown world.
As he walked, he had already left the core area of the Hundred Beasts Forest and was very close to where Yun Fei was supposed to meet him.
Perhaps because they knew he was coming in advance, many low-level demon beasts had hidden in their homes early on, so he hardly encountered any.
However, some young ones were unconvinced, thinking Su Mo was just a human, and it was too arrogant for him to swagger around their territory like this. Baring their fangs, they challenged him to a fight.
Su Mo, with a smile in his eyes like a venerable elder, gave these youngsters, who were new to the world and unaware of its dangers, gentle pats.
“Owwwwwwww…”
“Squeak squeak squeak…”
“Quack quack quack…”
Various cries of pain rose one after another, startling a group of birds watching the excitement.
Su Mo clapped his hands, raised his delicate, jade-like chin proudly, and said disdainfully, “In recognition of your courage, I’ll teach you a lesson—if you’re weak, train more. Don’t come out and make fools of yourselves.”
The more arrogant they were before, the worse they looked now. The group of half-grown demon beasts were chastised into silence, forced to swallow their grievances.
There was no helping it—this human in front of them had no martial ethics, specifically hitting them in the face. Though the force was light and the damage low, the humiliation was extreme.
“I’m off if there’s nothing else.” Su Mo waved his hand, said goodbye, the little dimples on his exquisite face utterly adorable.
Suddenly, he paused mid-step, a strange feeling of being watched washing over him.
The feeling was very odd, purely intuition with no factual basis.
Huh, what’s going on? Why have I been feeling like someone’s watching me lately?
Su Mo rubbed his temples and muttered to himself, “Maybe I’ve been training too hard lately. I’ll reward myself with a good meal when I get back.”
He pushed off with his legs and “whooshed” away from the spot.
The beaten half-grown demon beasts kept their heads lowered, not daring to look up until they could no longer sense Su Mo’s presence.
He was already long gone.
……
……
Meanwhile.
Jiang City.
Ye Qingyi sat at the table, chin propped in her hands, a clean and sunny smile on her handsome face.
“He’s so bad. How could he bully little animals like that?”
“But…” A faint blush crossed her cheeks. “Facing so many Beast Kings without flinching is pretty cool though.”
“This husky is something else—it actually came from here, and it can recite the Chu Shi Biao* too!” (*Note: “Chu Shi Biao” is a famous memorial written by Zhuge Liang during the Three Kingdoms period.)
Ever since the day Ye Zhongwen gave her trouble and she accidentally shared Su Mo’s perspective in the car, Ye Qingyi’s body had undergone tremendous changes.
Not only did her cultivation skyrocket, breaking through to the Snow Mountain Realm in one go, but she directly condensed four snow mountains upon entry.
One must know, other C-ranks take at least several months, often years, to condense a single snow mountain. Furthermore, the difficulty increases with each additional mountain. Yet, she condensed four all at once.
Elder Tianquan, Qin Xun, only managed to condense four in his time too, finding it difficult to progress further afterward.
Of course, all this was still relatively normal. The most outrageous part was definitely the shared perspective.
How to describe it? It felt like returning to one’s original body, except the sensations from that body weren’t fed back to her. It was like an extremely realistic virtual life experience.
And so, from that day on, she would frequently “possess,” secretly checking what Su Mo was up to.
During this time, she summarized the following patterns:
-
She could only view once a day, and each session lasted no longer than ten minutes, otherwise she would automatically exit.
-
She could only receive information through senses like vision, hearing, and touch, but couldn’t speak. Therefore, Su Mo neither discovered nor could discover that he was being “monitored.”
-
Time seemed inconsistent between the two sides. Based on Su Mo’s conversations with others, only a few days had passed in Chuyuan, while several months had gone by on Earth.
Having figured out the patterns, Ye Qingyi’s “viewing” experience became better and better.
The only regret was the inability to communicate. Otherwise, how much more fun would it be…
As Ye Qingyi was thinking this, her phone rang.
It was her sister’s. It seemed she had left the ancient tomb now.
“Sis.” Ye Qingyi felt there was no problem addressing her like this given her current identity.
There was a moment of silence on the other end before Ye Qingyu’s slightly hoarse voice came through: “It’s been four months. Still no trace found.”
Ye Qingyi thought for a moment and decided to tell her sister the news that “she” wasn’t dead.
“Sis, actually, Qingyi isn’t dead.”
Ye Qingyu was first stunned, then said calmly: “It’s actually quite nice that Qingyi met a boy like you.”
“Sis, what I mean is…”
“Alright, you rest now. The reason I came out this time is because Elder Nan Gong needs to see me regarding Qingyi.”
Before she could respond, Ye Qingyu hurriedly hung up.
Well, she had even prepared an explanation for how to confirm “she” wasn’t dead, but it ended up being useless.
Fine, she just wouldn’t tell her for now.
Ye Qingyi quickly ate some food and entered a cultivation state.
She was now a director of the Qingyu Association, with many matters requiring her attention. Beidou also frequently assigned tasks. She was simply swamped.
……
……
Su Mo didn’t leave Yuncheng City immediately. Instead, he used money to extensively gather useful items, including magical instruments, medicinal herbs, rare minerals, and more.
He tried searching for cultivation techniques and spells, but found these things rarely circulated on the market. Among the ones he found, either the grade was too low, or they were too niche.
For example, the “Flame Tempering Art” was an extremely niche technique. Rumor had it that no one had achieved any notable results cultivating it before him.
The more he saw this, the more he admired Beidou’s Scripture Pavilion. With tens of thousands of texts containing various techniques and spells, it was truly a holy land for cultivators.
These were all treasures passed down generation after generation by the ancestors of Xia Country. Previous generations planted the trees, later generations enjoyed the shade. If anyone along the way had damaged them, it would have been a tremendous loss for all humanity.
Su Mo flipped through the niche spellbooks he acquired one by one, hoping to find something useful.
His biggest problem now was that he practiced too few spells, and they were all ultimate moves. The Mountain Sea Fist was even a life-saving technique that hurt the enemy a thousand at the cost of eight hundred self-damage, making it unsuitable for normal use in combat.
Therefore, he had already decided to apply for closed-door cultivation immediately upon returning this time. Firstly, to learn the complete version of the Mountain Sea Fist, and secondly, to fill this gap.
Because compared to foreign superhumans, the biggest advantage of Xia Country’s cultivation system lies in the fact that the existence of the Qi Sea and Snow Mountains allows numerous spells to serve as auxiliary means, much like Western magic.
Unlike magic, however, spells cover a wider range and generally don’t require incantations, making them relatively faster.
Hence the saying, “The later the stage, the stronger Xia Country’s superhumans become.”
Precisely because their upper limit is very high.
Su Mo flipped through the spellbooks one by one, disappointed each time. Gradually, he got used to it.
But at this moment, he suddenly came across a spell called “Mental Assault Art.”
The name alone made his eyes light up.
Isn’t mental energy what we’re best at?