sovbooks Chapter 12: The Earth Dragon Reborn!
Chapter 12: The Earth Dragon Reborn!
"Thanks, I'll treat Brother Li to dinner another day." Looking at this rich young master who was even younger than himself, Zhang Ping couldn't help but smile.
"Let's just eat. With you never leaving the house these past few decades, I'll be old by then," Li Fan said with a strange expression. Since that incident, Zhang Ping had completely given up on leaving the martial arts school, and Li Fan had to run errands for him every time he needed to buy medicinal herbs.
"Brother Zhang, when will you be able to produce your secret medicine? I'm waiting impatiently!"
Zhang Ping's pretext for asking Li Fan to buy medicinal herbs was that he was testing his family's secret recipe. Many people in the martial arts school heard about it and thought he was bragging—how could a poor man from a brothel have a family secret recipe? Only a young master like Li Fan, who was bored and always running around, was willing to believe him to some extent.
Zhang Ping straightened his expression: "Soon!"
"..."
"You said that ten days ago..." Li Fan muttered to himself, and finally left.
After seeing Li Fan off, Zhang Ping first noted down the list of materials needed to imprint the Flying Goose Bird's eye characteristics. Then, he took the package of medicinal herbs that Li Fan had just brought back to his room. On the table in his room was a wooden box, half-filled with soil, with several plump earthworms wriggling around inside.
Zhang Ping casually grabbed a piece, skillfully cleaned it, and mixed it with the materials he had brought.
"Beast Mark, Regenerative Power!"
Earthworm][Regeneration]
[Beast Pattern - Earth Dragon Regeneration: Enhances the body's life essence, greatly improving the ability to regenerate severed limbs]
[Required materials: Complete earth dragon body, beast relic stone, life flower, ...]
"brand!"
All the materials instantly transformed into a soft green sphere of light, which swiftly entered Zhang Ping's body. The entire process took only a few breaths.
Zhang Ping focused his mind on his sea of consciousness, and sure enough, a new line had appeared on the strange panel: [Earth Dragon Regeneration].
A warm, tingling sensation rose from his left chest, near his heart, and intricate green lines appeared beneath his skin before disappearing. Zhang Ping felt a surge of vitality coursing through his body, sweeping away the fatigue of days of research and filling him with more energy than ever before. He picked up a small knife and, without hesitation, made a two-inch incision in his left arm.
Blood gushed out, causing a slight stinging pain. But after only two breaths, the bleeding mysteriously stopped. The skin and flesh at the edge of the wound twitched slightly, and a scab began to form at a visible speed.
"Such powerful self-healing ability!" Zhang Ping gasped, his joy almost overflowing. The foundation of limb regeneration—wasn't this terrifying regenerative power the very basis? With this Earth Dragon Regeneration Beast Mark by his side, his ability to survive in the future would be greatly increased!
"With so many beast patterns enhancing my skills, although my martial arts cultivation is still stuck at the threshold of the Skin Tempering Realm, my true combat strength... should already be comparable to that of an ordinary Skin Tempering Realm martial artist, right?"
Zhang Ping clenched his fist, feeling the explosive power hidden beneath his muscles. But the next moment, he frowned. "No, having strength and speed without combat experience and skills is bad. If we really fight, I'm afraid I'll suffer a great loss..."
His thoughts raced. Compared to half a month ago, he was indeed much stronger. Not only had he gained new beast patterns, but his main skill, the Ox Strength Pattern, had also improved considerably. He was absolutely confident that he could crush his former self from half a month ago.
However, the problems are also obvious – the areas for improvement are too scattered, and the shortcomings are too prominent.
"It seems I'll eventually have to find a way to imprint a beast mark that can cover my entire body." Zhang Ping's gaze fell on the mark representing the bull's strength. This beast mark affects the whole body and is specifically for enhancing strength.
This is why he can no longer imprint other beast markings to enhance his power, unless he finds a beast more powerful than the Ox-Force.
He had been keeping an eye on this matter. There were countless strange beasts in this world, many stronger than bulls, but those that used this as their strength or characteristic were few and far between. Given his current status and position, acquiring a suitable one would be as difficult as ascending to heaven.
Beyond strength, speed might be another direction. Imprinting a speed beast pattern covering the entire body doesn't conflict with bull strength patterns. However, the effect of imprinting the entire body is far inferior to focusing on strengthening the legs. The latter's effect is concentrated, and the necessary materials are easier to gather.
"The agility of a deer? The stamina of a mule?..." Zhang Ping paced back and forth in the small room, pondering for a long time, before finally shaking his head.
"Thinking too much is pointless. The right thing to do is to push the progress of the Ox-Strength Beast Pattern to perfection and see what changes will occur!" He had a vague premonition that when a beast pattern reaches perfection, it will definitely bring about a qualitative change.
Moreover, with the continuous nourishment of the beast pattern, his martial arts foundation has become increasingly solid, and the thin paper of the tempering realm seems to be within reach.
Now is the golden age for a leap in strength!
......
"...It doesn't seem like it. The An family should be fine." Ling Qi stroked his sparse beard, his sunken eyes fixed on the thin paper in his hand, his brows furrowed into a deep frown.
"Old Qi, the An family is the last major family we've checked. If they're also fine, then we'll have to sift through the smaller, less important ones." The man sitting next to him rubbed his throbbing temples, looking exhausted.
This period has created an atmosphere of fear and unease in Chuancheng. Every influential force lives in trepidation, dreading the stern face of the Demon Extermination Bureau. In contrast, the western part of the city, ravaged by demons, exhibits a strange and disturbing tranquility.
Ling Qi did not answer immediately, but slowly shook his head. He got up and walked to the tall bookshelf at the back of the room. His thin fingers ran over the rows of yellowed spines and finally pulled out an astonishingly thick black book.
The heavy pages rustled in his hands, eventually settling on a particular page.
"There are too few clues. Whether the demon is still in the city or has already escaped, we don't know..." Ling Qi's voice was low and hoarse.
"If the aura that the Director brought back is correct, it must be the work of the Formless Soul."
Anqing was known for his fondness for men, but he himself was a man.
Logically, parasitic, formless spirits are mostly yin spirits that feed on the essence of living beings regardless of gender. If he truly wanted to kidnap people, wouldn't it be less noticeable to follow his "normal" orientation? Why go against the grain and arouse suspicion?
His cloudy eyes stared at the blurry illustrations in the book, his knuckles lightly tapping the edges of the pages: "But what if it's... the legendary 'special parasitism'?" He paused, seemingly choosing his words carefully.
"The ancient texts record that, under special circumstances, the parasitic soul can become a yang soul... and a man who is specially parasitized by a yang soul..." He looked up at his colleague and said, word by word, "will only have lustful thoughts towards women."
Whether it's normal parasitism or abnormal, special parasitism, Anjia's Anqing seems out of place.
Moreover, the Demon Exorcism Bureau's secret artifacts had already repeatedly examined the An residence, and no demonic aura had been detected. Anqing had also been checked, and no problems were found so far.
Ling Qi closed the heavy book with a muffled thud: "In that case, the An family can indeed be ruled out. They're just simply attracted to men."
"Well... this is really difficult..." The man's face showed even more worry.
A shadow fell over Ling Qi's wrinkled face, and his voice was so low that only he could hear it: "I just hope... it's just an ordinary parasitic formless soul..."
"I've become a rat crossing the street! Everyone wants to kill me!"
In a dark, secluded chamber deep within the An family compound, a chilling scene was unfolding. An Qing, shirtless, was enveloped and entangled in a thick, eerie, blood-red mist. A thick iron chain covered in dark gold runes was tightly constricted into his flesh like a living python.
His face was now split in two completely different halves! The left half retained its masculine features, but was twisted madly by extreme pain and rage, emitting a beast-like, unwilling roar:
"To be buried with them! I will make the entire city of Lingchuan... be buried with them!!!" The right half, however, presented eerie female features, smooth as porcelain, cold and stiff without a single expression.
Only when the dark gold chain that bound him tightly suddenly tightened, and the excruciating pain of burning flesh struck, would that half of the woman's face twitch violently, and an uncontrollable scream of pain escape her throat.
"Urgent...what..." The woman's lips finally parted slightly, her voice like the scraping of rusty iron, cold and flat, "Last time the breakthrough...though it was interrupted...we...didn't expose ourselves...the ancient method...was effective..."
"I can't wait any longer! I can't wait even a day longer!" The male half of Anqing's face twitched violently, his eyes rolling upwards, leaving only horrifying whites. As his frenzied emotions surged, the dark gold chains binding his entire body suddenly turned crimson and scalding hot! The places that came into contact with his skin emitted a sizzling burning sound, and the smell of burning permeated the air.
To gain power enough to overturn everything, he risked everything, cooperating with this ghost who claimed to have inherited the mantle of "Demon Chaos." Simply because the other party possessed an ancient technique… a secret art that ignored all bottlenecks and forcibly broke through realms!
It is common knowledge that demons cultivate by absorbing the essence of living beings, progressing at an astonishing speed! But this is not a smooth path without a price. All demons bear an inherent constraint—the difficulty for them to break through the barriers of their cultivation realm is ten times, a hundred times, greater than that for humans! Once they reach the limits of their racial talents, they are trapped in an inescapable prison of despair!
Even the formless soul is no exception. Ordinary parasitic formless souls, at most, can only reach the Refining Purity Realm or the Bone Forging Realm in their entire lives... those are unattainable legends.
But Anqing... he's different! The ghost inside him... is special!
That ancient secret technique allowed them to ignore all barriers and break the curse of their bloodline! The price was... to go from wantonly devouring the essence of all living beings to only being able to draw a meager amount of primordial yang energy from a man's body.
The advantage is that, in addition to breaking through the bottleneck, one can use the plundered abundant yang energy, combined with this demon-locking chain, to try to conceal one's own ineradicable demonic aura and evade the eyes of the Demon Extermination Bureau that see into the netherworld.
"If it weren't for... half a month ago... that damned woman... interfering..." The ghost's voice was also filled with deep-seated resentment, a hint of madness lurking in its cold tone.
"We... have long since entered the realm of filth... why should we... be so hesitant to act against a small martial arts school..."
"There's still... a chance..." The half of the Anqing man's face seemed to finally calm down after being infected by this cold resentment, and a scraping sound like fingernails digging into a stone wall came from his throat.