Blood Pool Anomaly

Next, Song Wen set out to evolve a second Black-armored Gu.

Since the first Black-armored Gu was male, Song Wen found a female among the Black-bellied Beetle Gu at the fifth level of Qi Refining and fed it White Bone Bug crystals.

After consuming over seventy crystals, this female Beetle Gu also spun silk and formed a cocoon.

Looking at the thirty-odd Black-bellied Beetle Gu flying around his cave dwelling, Song Wen felt somewhat troubled. With the Black-armored Gu, these Black-bellied Beetle Gu no longer served much purpose.

Although they had once rendered great service to him, keeping them required a massive daily expenditure of Spirit Stones.

Once a tool outlives its usefulness, it is discarded!

Without hesitation, Song Wen crushed the Black-bellied Beetle Gu to death one by one, leaving only one male and one female at the fifth level of Qi Refining as a contingency.

The corpses of the Black-bellied Beetle Gu were not wasted either; Song Wen fed them all to the Black-armored Gu.

As a result, Song Wen now only held one Black-armored Gu, two Black-bellied Beetle Gu, two ordinary Beetle Gu, and one Gu insect currently in a cocoon.

Half a month later, the Gu insect broke free of its cocoon, and Song Wen obtained a female Black-armored Gu.

Another month later, the female Black-armored Gu began to lay eggs, producing a total of two Gu eggs.

After being nurtured in the Gu cauldron for a month, the eggs began to hatch. Two tiny larvae, their backs covered in black spots, crawled out.

Twenty days later, these two larvae began to spin cocoons.

After another half month, they broke out of their cocoons, and two new Black-armored Gu were born.

The newborn Black-armored Gu, just like the one that evolved from the Black-bellied Beetle Gu, possessed the strength of the eighth level of Qi Refining.

Through observing the Black-armored Gu over this period, Song Wen reached a conclusion.

Only when a Black-armored Gu first broke from its cocoon did it possess a massive appetite, requiring a vast amount of spiritual materials. Afterward, their cravings lessened significantly, but each Black-armored Gu still consumed five Spirit Stones' worth of spiritual materials every day. Furthermore, they each needed to devour a drop of Essence Blood daily.

They truly were not something just anyone could afford to raise.

Looking at the four Black-armored Gu before him, Song Wen felt somewhat troubled.

Should he continue breeding more Black-armored Gu, or pour his efforts into elevating their strength? If they could advance to the ninth level of Qi Refining as soon as possible, Song Wen would basically have nothing to fear when facing other Qi Refining cultivators.

After careful deliberation, Song Wen decided to increase the number of Black-armored Gu to eight, and then do everything possible to elevate their strength.

Eight Black-armored Gu would consume over a thousand Spirit Stones every month, equivalent to the value of nine bottles of Essence Blood. The Spirit Stones Song Wen obtained from stealing and selling Essence Blood in the Corpse Dismemberment Cave would be enough to sustain them.

While nurturing the Gu insects, Song Wen did not neglect his own cultivation.

While cultivating the "Divine Restriction Technique", he discovered a very peculiar matter. During his trip to the ancient battlefield, he had devoured the complete souls of four cultivators in total. Later, he had gone to the market and purchased three more cultivator souls.

Devouring these intact souls vastly accelerated his cultivation speed of the "Divine Restriction Technique". The intensity of his Mental Power was already faintly showing signs of breaking through to the ninth level of Qi Refining.

This discovery thoroughly tempted him. To push his Mental Power to the ninth level of Qi Refining as quickly as possible, he made several more trips to the market to purchase cultivator souls. However, this added yet another expense for him, on top of his already massive expenditures.

During his venture to the ancient battlefield, Song Wen realized that despite possessing a powerful physical body, he lacked a matching combat method. Thus, he visited the Technique Transmission Hall and selected a close-quarters cultivation art, the "Netherworld Claw".

This was a claw technique founded upon a powerful physique and executed with an intense baleful aura, making it perfectly suited for Song Wen to cultivate.

Cultivating the "Netherworld Claw" required the consumption of a spiritual material known as Gengjin Stone. By absorbing its metallic essence qi to temper his hands, they would become incomparably sharp and virtually indestructible.

Once the "Netherworld Claw" was cultivated to a certain level, he could project claw radiance similar to sword Qi, fierce and unrivaled.

This made Song Wen's need for Spirit Stones even greater.

On this day.

Song Wen walked into the Corpse Dismemberment Cave as usual. Before he could approach Yuan Cheng to collect his corpses, he noticed several disciples from the Law Enforcement Hall present inside.

One of them wore particularly distinct attire, somewhat resembling the extremely rare Formation Masters within the Sect.

They were scattered throughout the Corpse Dismemberment Cave, inspecting all around as if searching for something.

Song Wen entered Yuan Cheng's cavern and casually asked while collecting his corpses.

"Senior Brother Yuan, what is the law enforcement team doing in the Corpse Dismemberment Cave?"

Yuan Cheng cast a sorrowful glance at the law enforcement members in the cave and spoke.

"For some reason, the quality of the blood gathered in the blood pool has declined recently. The amount of Essence Blood refined from it is five percent less than usual."

"The Sect is worried that the Blood Gathering Formation in the Corpse Dismemberment Cave has encountered a problem, leading to a loss of vitality and blood qi. They specially came over to inspect it."

As the steward of the Corpse Dismemberment Cave, Yuan Cheng would be implicated if any problems arose. Consequently, Yuan Cheng appeared rather anxious today.

Hearing this, Song Wen momentarily did not know how to respond. He hadn't expected his recent frenzied absorption of blood qi to actually affect the concentration of the blood in the pool, much less attract the Sect's attention.

Over these past few days, in order to exchange for enough Spirit Stones to supply his cultivation, he hadn't just stolen Essence Blood from the corpses he dismembered. He had also opened his physical body, desperately absorbing the blood qi dissipating in the air.

"Could my absorption of the ambient blood qi have caused the blood qi in the pool to dissipate faster, resulting in a drop in the blood vitality within the pool?"

Song Wen pondered inwardly.

But on second thought, that didn't seem quite right.

He had been stealing Essence Blood in the Corpse Dismemberment Cave for more than just a day or two. The blood in the pool had never shown any issues before. Why would problems suddenly appear now?

Could there be others stealing blood from the blood pool as well?

Song Wen swept his gaze around, looking at the busy Corpse Dismemberers nearby.

Among these Corpse Dismemberers, there were likely very few innocent souls.

As for how they went about stealing Essence Blood? Who didn't have their own Fated Chances and secrets!

Song Wen silently recalled his actions, wondering if he had left any flaws behind when selling Essence Blood recently.

After repeatedly confirming that he had thoroughly disguised himself every time he sold Essence Blood and could absolutely not be recognized, Song Wen finally set down the heavy stone in his heart.

However, when he thought about the twenty bottles of Essence Blood hidden in his cave dwelling-worth nearly two thousand eight hundred Spirit Stones-he felt another headache coming on.

Under the current circumstances, he definitely couldn't go to the market to sell large amounts of Essence Blood anymore.

If the Law Enforcement Hall failed to find any issues in the Corpse Dismemberment Cave, there was no guarantee they wouldn't go to the market to investigate.

"Should I go to the market to sell a single bottle of Essence Blood every day? That's a bit too troublesome. Forget it, I'll just be more frugal for the time being and wait for the storm to pass."

The law enforcement team spent half the day inspecting the formation but failed to find any problems. Thus, they shifted their attention to the Corpse Dismemberers and Steward Yuan Cheng.

With the law enforcement team monitoring from the side, Song Wen wasn't stubborn enough to steal Essence Blood right in front of them. Although they most likely wouldn't discover it, he feared the slightest mishap.

After finishing his corpse dismemberment, Song Wen returned to his cave dwelling.

Yuan Cheng, however, was not so fortunate. He was taken away by the law enforcement team.

The very next day, the Corpse Dismemberment Cave changed to a new steward. He was a male cultivator at the eighth level of Qi Refining named Feng Deng.

As for Yuan Cheng, Song Wen never saw him again.

Yuan Cheng possessed a cultivation at the ninth level of Qi Refining. He had willingly come to serve as a steward in the Corpse Dismemberment Cave, a place mixed with the foul and turbid qi of heaven and earth, for the sole purpose of earning Spirit Stones to purchase a Foundation Establishment Pill.

Distributing corpses and recovering bones and flesh daily offered plenty of illicit profits to reap. After all, who would notice if some bones and flesh occasionally went missing?

And those bones and flesh could be sold for a good price, especially those belonging to righteous cultivators.

Righteous cultivators liked to consume Demon Beast meat to assist in their cultivation. Demonic cultivators were no different, though they consumed more than just Demon Beast meat.

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