Translator: Cinder Translations
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"Urgh..."
Just as Song Wen returned to his cave, he couldn't hold back any longer. Without eating all day, something unknown had accumulated in his stomach, causing a violent upheaval.
Song Wen vomited continuously for half an hour, feeling bile rise in his throat, and his nauseous stomach finally began to settle.
Exhausted and wanting to collapse into sleep, he felt covered in the smell of blood and corpse stench, making him nauseous again.
He had to go outside and fetch two buckets of water to wash himself clean, then cleaned up the vomit in his cave before finally lying down to sleep.
The next day, Song Wen woke up early.
He first went to the cafeteria for menial disciples to have breakfast, then hurried to the Corpse Dissection Cave before the third hour of the day. If he didn't arrive early enough today, after dissecting 100 corpses, he might not make it back to his cave to rest, and instead, immediately start the next day's dissection.
Fortunately, the Corpse Dissection Cave was not far from where he lived.
He was the first to arrive at the Corpse Dissection Cave that day.
After receiving the corpses from Yuan Cheng, Song Wen couldn't wait to begin dissecting.
By the time he completed dissecting about one corpse, it was almost half a quarter hour. When he finished dissecting 100 corpses, it had been more than six hours.
He was still the last Corpse Dissector to leave. When he walked out of the Corpse Dissection Cave, just like the day before, it was already dark.
Back at his cave, after a quick wash, he went to the cafeteria.
At this time, there were only a few scattered menial disciples eating in the cafeteria.
Suppressing his nausea, Song Wen forced himself to eat a large amount of food.
He knew that under such high pressure, if his body couldn't compensate with enough energy, both his mind and body could develop problems and collapse.
However, as a practitioner of demonic cultivation, his physical strength and endurance were not something ordinary people could compare to, and his body did not encounter any problems.
After dinner, when Song Wen returned to his cave, he inspected his body internally.
He found that although he hadn't absorbed the essence and blood from the corpses he dissected in the past two days, the dense blood qi in the Corpse Dissection Cave and occasional unintentional ingestion of essence and blood had replenished his qi and blood that were previously depleted.
By now, he had once again become a vigorous young man with abundant qi and blood.
That night, Song Wen chose not to cultivate but to sleep.
Sleeping could best alleviate his mental fatigue and discomfort.
Although the work of dissecting corpses was unpleasant, it lacked the conflicts and complex interpersonal relationships, which made time pass quickly. Before he knew it, a month had passed.
Song Wen had gradually adapted to corpse dissection and become a qualified Corpse Dissector.
He only needed to spend four hours each day in the Corpse Dissection Cave, still being the last one to leave.
Song Wen had already resumed his daily cultivation. With the blood qi plundered from the Corpse Dissection Cave, his cultivation in the "Corpse King Blood Refining Technique" had made rapid progress, silently advancing his cultivation to the third stage of Qi Refining.
However, just as he finished his meditation and cultivation, Song Wen encountered an awkward problem.
Because his cultivation speed was too fast, he found that the corpse qi provided by the Corpse Well in his cave was no longer sufficient for his cultivation needs.
While he could plunder and devour enough qi and blood while dissecting corpses, the corpse qi in the Corpse Well was not endless but limited.
At present, the situation of insufficient corpse qi only occurred in Song Wen's cave. It was impossible for other disciples in the early stages of Qi Refining to encounter a shortage of corpse qi in their caves.
"What should I do? Where can I get enough corpse qi?"
Song Wen immediately ended his meditation. By now, the sky outside was beginning to brighten, marking another sleepless night of cultivation.
Today was payday. Song Wen planned to take his monthly wages and visit a nearby market at the foot of the mountain to see if he could buy some corpse qi.
After completing his corpse dissecting work for the day, Song Wen received his monthly wages: 120 low-grade spirit stones, ten corpse blood pills, but no more spirit-nourishing pills.
With plenty of time left in the day, Song Wen hurried back to his cave. He was too heavily imbued with the smell of blood to easily visit the market, which did not fit his habit of shrinking from attention.
After washing up, Song Wen did not immediately go to the market. Instead, he went to the sect's Transmission Hall. His cultivation in the "Corpse King Blood Refining Technique" had reached the second stage of Qi Refining, and it was time to enhance his combat capabilities.
With Song Wen pushing himself to the limit, it took nearly half an hour to reach the Transmission Hall halfway up the mountain.
After presenting his disciple token, Song Wen smoothly entered the Transmission Hall. However, he was informed that as a disciple in the early stage of Qi Refining, he could only access the first floor of the Transmission Hall.
There were many books in the Transmission Hall, covering a wide range of topics and neatly categorized, including cultivation techniques, combat spells, corpse puppet refining techniques, spiritual herb cultivation, and spiritual material appraisal...
However, on the first floor of the Transmission Hall, there were only basic techniques and low-grade spiritual herb and material books.
Song Wen quickly browsed through the spell section. There weren't many suitable techniques for early Qi Refining disciples, totaling just over thirty.
After a brief glance, conventional spells like Fireball and Shield Spells didn't hold much attraction for him.
However, some exclusive demonic techniques caught his attention.
One of them was a technique called "Blood Sacrifice Technique." Once activated, this technique could temporarily significantly enhance a cultivator's mana, but at the cost of burning the cultivator's own essence and blood.
Others who used this technique lightly risked depletion of their blood and immediate death, usually only used as a last resort.
However, Song Wen had no such concerns. Over the past month, he had repeatedly devoured the essence and blood of others, gradually uncovering some secrets of his own body's ability to devour essence and blood.
Perhaps due to his strengthened physique or his body gradually adapting to devouring the essence and blood of others, he no longer felt uncomfortable or overwhelmed with blood qi when devouring essence and blood.
Regardless of how much essence and blood he devoured, his body could quickly absorb and digest it.
At the moment, it was also possible that Song Wen had recently been more restrained, and the strength of his body had not reached the limit of devouring essence and blood.
In any case, Song Wen now stored more than ten times the essence and blood of others in his body. Using the "Blood Sacrifice Technique" was effortless for him, with no concerns about blood and essence consumption in his eyes.
Even if his essence and blood were depleted, he could quickly replenish them by devouring essence and blood.
Just as Song Wen was excited, he noticed the price of the "Blood Sacrifice Technique," which he could only reluctantly put down.
The "Blood Sacrifice Technique" was priced at one hundred low-grade spirit stones, which he couldn't afford at the moment.
With his current income, it would take him five months just to save up for one spirit stone.
Song Wen then noticed another technique called "Blood Escape Technique," a method to burn one's own essence and blood to increase speed, priced at eighty spirit stones, which Song Wen also couldn't afford.
Putting aside the "Blood Escape Technique," Song Wen then moved to the area of corpse puppet refining techniques.
As a major faction in producing corpse puppets, the Corpse Demon Sect had over a dozen corpse puppet techniques that early Qi Refining cultivators could practice.
Perhaps to promote corpse puppet techniques or because low-level techniques were common near the Corpse Demon Sect, most corpse puppet refining techniques were quite affordable, ranging from several to over twenty low-grade spirit stones.
There were also many types of corpse puppets, including high-level techniques that combined souls and corpses for refining, as well as low-level techniques that only refined corpses.
Corpse puppets with souls, also known as living corpses, were more agile and powerful to manipulate. With suitable Yin attribute spiritual materials, their levels could continue to improve.
Corpse puppets without souls, known as stiff corpses, were very awkward to manipulate and had no growth potential. Due to their low production costs, they were generally used as disposable cannon fodder.
(End of the Chapter)