Wu Youren struck several more times with his saber. Finally, a warm current washed over him—the experience points were his!
The pouch eagle's beak was actually still twitching slightly, though it was likely just an involuntary muscle spasm.
"What a nuisance." Wu Youren sighed and shook his head. If he wanted to burn this eagle, he would still have to wait a bit.
Guizu-corrupted beasts were truly uncanny.
Even though it was dead and the experience points had been credited, the Guizu aura hadn't fully dissipated yet. Getting pecked by that sharp beak would be an awful loss.
He definitely had to burn the carcass. After death, a pouch eagle had a certain chance of turning into a full Guizu creature, and its hatred would undoubtedly be focused on him.
Not that Wu Youren minded more experience points; the problem was... the thing could fly!
Leaving that factor aside, whenever circumstances allowed him to show some decency, he was willing to observe it.
A minute or two later, the surrounding Guizu aura showed signs of drifting in this direction, perhaps drawn by the commotion just now.
Wu Youren lost patience with waiting. With a couple sweeps of his long saber, he dragged the scattered pieces of the carcass together into a pile.
Hoping for some luck, he poked through the remains, only to discover with astonishment an irregularly shaped stone lying beneath the beak.
About the size of a fist, the stone was pale cyan, pitted with faint, tiny holes, resembling volcanic rock.
Wu Youren paid close attention: once the stone was exposed, the surrounding Guizu aura... didn't stir very violently!
This matched his assessment: the stone had not triggered any strong resonance in him.
There was certainly some sensation, but it was weaker than that of an ordinary Guizu relic, far below the one he had retrieved from the azure armadillo's burrow.
So it was only natural that other Guizu creatures weren't reacting violently.
Even so, he wrapped it in a piece of pelt to seal off its aura, and then lit a fire.
The burning feathers and flesh of the pouch eagle produced a foul, rancid stench, but strangely enough, the surrounding Guizu aura surged in even faster.
Wu Youren could hardly stand the smell himself and walked several dozen paces aside, though not too far.
When burning a Guizu-corrupted creature, it was best to keep watch nearby; otherwise, if anything went wrong, all previous efforts would be wasted.
Over the days that followed, he hunted beasts across the wilderness while assimilating his experience points.
By the eighth day, he had obtained his second resentment crystal.
Wu Youren was in no hurry to leave the mountains. Whatever was happening in the outside world, there was nothing unusual inside the mountains for now.
He might as well seize the chance to stay longer and see if he could farm another crystal or two.
After all, a major battle was looming, and he genuinely had no idea what the situation would be like the next time he entered the mountains.
One day, after finishing his meditation, he raised his hand abruptly and flicked his finger toward a shrub two meters away.
A red sphere of light the size of a soybean flew from his fingertip, drifting lazily onto the shrub.
The next moment, soft crackling noises popped where the sphere of light had settled, and then it actually burst into flame.
The fire was small at first, but it burned with fierce momentum, spreading across the entire shrub in barely a dozen breaths.
"Phew..." Wu Youren exhaled a long breath. "I finally pulled it off!"
Across two lifetimes, this was the very first Daoist spell he had cast—Fireball Art.
Though the fireball was only the size of a soybean—calling it a Lamp Flame Art would have been more fitting—and moved at a leisurely pace, this was an unprecedented first!
The effect really didn't matter. What mattered was... it genuinely burned.
Being able to develop Fireball Art was all thanks to Er Shan's cultivation notes. Otherwise, if left to figure it out on his own, it would have taken at least seven or eight years.
More importantly, some of the steps were things he hadn't considered at all; their value in filling in the blanks was tremendous.
Had he fumbled around blindly, he might well have suffered cultivation deviation during the process!
One point in particular warranted emphasis: although Er Shan's path had been somewhat skewed, what he had awakened was of the elemental branch.
The man had cultivated earth, not fire, but both belonged to the elemental branch and could serve as mutual reference.
At the start, Wu Youren had also leaned toward the earth element, wanting to try developing a Stone Ball Art.
Unfortunately, not even Er Shan knew that technique; all he could manage was playing with sandification and the like.
Still, that was understandable. He was only an apprentice ability master whose path hadn't been quite right, so one couldn't ask too much of him.
In any case, being able to produce a fireball today was a tremendous cause for celebration.
Lacking power and speed were matters to address later.
Whether he possessed it at all was the decisive factor; how good it was could be refined in the future.
All in all, Wu Youren was in high spirits. He stood up, scouted the surroundings, and whenever he came across a solitary Guizu, he attacked to test its power.
Regrettably, the Fireball Art he had mastered was too slow. It was barely passable for defense, but completely out of the question for an offensive strike.
Yet that was no big hurdle; he could conceal his biguijue to lure Guizu into attacking him.
After several trials, however, he found that striking first, beating the Guizu until it was weakened, and then finishing it with a fireball yielded better results.
By a stroke of serendipity, Wu Youren got the vague sense that handling it this way yielded more experience points.
At first, he couldn't be certain, thinking the sample size was too small.
Though this world had no Classmate Geng, he still decided to repeat the experiment several more times.
This was a matter of grave importance; the understanding involved directly affected his personal progression and even his survival.
After testing several more cases, his hypothesis proved valid.
Recalling the knight saber-wielder who had ambushed him earlier, he gained a faint epiphany.
So to harvest karmic fortune, was it best to brutally torment the enemy first, drawing more hatred to maximize the yield?
This logic... how to put it? It made theoretical sense and aligned with the karmic laws of heaven and earth.
Wu Youren didn't know whether to laugh or cry: if he deliberately harvested experience points this way from now on, wouldn't his psyche get twisted?
His moral standards weren't particularly high, but this... still felt rather uncomfortable.
To resolve his doubts, he verified it twice more and finally confirmed: brutally torturing and killing an enemy truly yielded higher experience points.
Watching the Guizu wail amidst the flames, he felt a faint resistance in his heart.
*I really don't want to become a pervert, what a dilemma... Huh, a crystal?*
This was the third crystal he had harvested on this trip.
Previously, when trading with the two knights, Wu Youren had stuck right to the required quota. As for these extra gains, he habitually intended to stash them away.
Just as he was about to put the crystal away, a cold bark rang out: "Stop! Drop it!"
Out of the dense mist, two figures emerged.
One was a sturdy woman devoid of hair—not only was her scalp bald, she didn't even have eyebrows.
The other was a burly man at least twice as broad as Wu Youren.
The man had his chest bared, wore a nose ring, and had only a small patch of hair on his forehead, giving off the flavor of a mini mohawk.
*Afraid people won't realize you're barbarians?* Wu Youren calmly stowed the crystal, reaching behind him to draw his long saber.
Without saying a word, he simply watched the pair with a calm gaze.
"I'll say it one last time!" The burly man ignored his stance, speaking in a muffled, gruff voice. "Hand it over."
Wu Youren darted abruptly, bolting straight into the white mist.
This was already deep in the mountains; the mist wasn't exceptionally thick, but so long as the distance was great enough, it could conceal his figure.
The two didn't pursue. Instead, the burly man stood dazed. "He actually... dared to run?"
As Wu Youren ran, he grumbled internally: *No wonder they're barbarians. They really do seem a bit dim.*
At the same time, he was puzzled: he had only been in the mountains for a few days this time, so how had barbarians already shown up?
The other side's words had been extremely rude, but they did have the backing for it, as both were knights.
Knights were appearing more and more frequently among the people Wu Youren encountered now.
Yet that didn't mean Liang was a land where knights walked every street while apprentice knights were treated like dogs.
Over ninety percent of the population were still ordinary people. Cultivation? Just thinking of the cost was enough to scare off most households.
From what he knew of the barbarians' situation, they were likely far worse off than genuine Liang citizens.
So for two newly arrived knights to act so overbearing wasn't incomprehensible.
Wu Youren decided to ignore them. The resentment crystal was already in hand; so what if they talked tough?
He wasn't particularly magnanimous, but the issue was that he had no idea how many barbarians had entered the mountains.
Nor did he know anything about how the barbarians communicated with one another.
Annoyed as he was, provoking a whole band of barbarians over a minor incident... even if the probability was small, he didn't want to risk it.
Besides, those were two knights, and he didn't know the barbarian fighting style. He truly couldn't get ahead of himself.
Meanwhile, the two barbarians exchanged a glance. The bald woman kicked the burly man. "What are you gaping at? Chase him!"
"He can't get away," the burly man said, staring at her in shock. "But why did you kick me?"
"Can't you speak with some sense?" The woman glared at him in displeasure. "We could have pretended to buy it first. Who robs someone outright?"
"He's just an apprentice knight," the burly man answered aggrievedly. "In the wilderness like this, shouldn't he hand it over obediently?"
"Use your head before doing things," the bald woman said, thoroughly speechless. "That watch of his was issued by Red Pine!"
After entering the mountains, Wu Youren had changed out of his Martial Academy uniform, making it convenient whether he chose to fight or flee if he ran into trouble.
However, his watch indeed came from Red Pine, and with his circumstances, it wasn't convenient to go outside to replace it.
Still, the Red Pine insignia on it was only two millimeters across and faintly stamped; for the woman to catch it at a glance, her eyesight was quite extraordinary.
"Red Pine? Then we should rob him even more!" the burly man replied self-righteously. "They rejected our people!"
"You dare talk back?" The bald woman glared...
After leaving, Wu Youren didn't remain in that area, relocating instead.
He wanted to see if any other barbarians appeared nearby.
As he searched, he wondered in his heart: *How did those two barbarians slip past my perception?*
After searching for most of the day, he encountered no second group of barbarians.
Returning to one of his shelters, he began preparing tonight's dinner.
Wu Youren lacked a sense of security, so he had prepared three such concealed strongholds, along with even more temporary refuges.
The latter had poorer conditions, however, with few mechanisms and low defense.
Chapter 111