The first commander
After killing the six bandits, Li Jing decided to look for the commander of this level but he was interrupted by a group of nine men that came towards him.
"I'm impressed that you killed these men so easily, kid." Said one of the men, clapping his hands and smiling widely as if the lives of his comrades didn't matter to him.
He was a middle-aged man in his forties with long black hair and a short beard. He was wearing a brown leather armor and a long sword in his back. Eight muscular men accompanied him and looked at Li Jing like he was some kind of prey.
The man crossed his arms, turned to the other men, and ordered:
"Don't kill him, I want to know who he is and if there is someone else with him. Of course, I don't prevent you from cutting his arm or leg if you need to immobilize him."
"We will take care of him, commander!" Said one of the men, smiling viciously.
So this man was a commander? Li Jing used his Divine Sense and found out that he was in the first level of the Foundation Establishment realm while the men around him were in the sixth or seventh level of the Qi Gathering realm.
The eight men formed a line in front of their commander and ran towards Li Jing with their weapons in hands.
However, LI Jing decided to ignore them and directly target the commander. Since the commander should think that he was only in the sixth level of the Qi Gathering realm, he would surely underestimate him and Li Jing wanted to take advantage of that to finish him quickly.
He activated his Elusive Smoke Steps technique and rushed towards the commander with his Yellow-grade daggers in hands, passing through the eight men.
"What the hell?!"
"How did he do that?!"
"Impossible!"
The eight men were dumbfounded while the commander widened his eyes when he saw Li Jing rushing towards him at full speed. He just had enough time to take out his long sword to parry the attack! However, since Li Jing had much more strength than him, the man was ejected several meters back and crashed into a wall of the cave.
"Commander!" Exclaimed several men.
If this kid was able to injure their commander did that mean that he was already in the Foundation Establishment realm? This thought scared them a lot.
"Let's get reinforcements from the second level!" Suggested one of them.
Hearing this, Li Jing decided to let them go to get reinforcements. More people meant more Experience Points to him and he knew that no matter how many they were, they would have no chance against him.
'Is it bad if I'm starting to consider human lives as Experience Points?' He wondered. But it was not the right time nor the right place to think about this…
Li Jing rushed towards the commander who had just got up and struck him several times with his daggers.
As someone in the first level of the Foundation Establishment realm, the commander was almost as fast as Li Jing so he was able to dodge or parry some of his attacks, but most of them still hit him so he started to bleed profusely.
"Enough! Mystical Blazing Palm!" Exclaimed the commander as he used his Martial technique.
His whole hand was covered by an intense red flame as he targeted his opponent's heart to finish him in one go. However, his attack didn't hit Li Jing but instead, it hit a golden shield of light!
"What?"
Li Jing had activated his new technique Shield of the Four Truths to block the commander's Martial technique and took advantage of his opponent's astonishment to drive his dagger into his heart. He then injected his Lightning Qi into his dagger to destroy the man's heart and internal organs.
[Host has killed a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment realm: XP + 350.]
He kept the soul of the man inside his body to absorb it later since more men were coming towards him. They were the men from earlier who came back with reinforcements.
Seeing Li Jing covered in blood standing in front of the dead body of their commander, they all shook in fear.
"D-did he really kill commander Yu?"
"He is not a kid but a demon!"
"W-we must warn commander Rong, only she can take care of him…"
"You are not going anywhere!" Exclaimed Li Jing.
Rumble!
The ground shook as he used his Heavenly Thunder Breath, instantly killing the twenty men in front of him.
[Host has killed 20 cultivators in the Qi Gathering realm: XP + 3000.]
As the twenty men turned into ashes, their souls flew towards Li Jing's body.
The whole first level was now clear. There was no one else but Li Jing standing in the middle of a pile of corpses and ashes.
Before going down the second level, Li Jing took a few minutes to absorb the souls of all the men he killed.
[Host has absorbed the soul of 26 cultivators in the Qi Gathering realm: Strength + 130 Jin, Soul Strength + 130.]
[Host has absorbed the soul of a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment realm: Strength + 50 Jin, Soul Strength + 10.]
[Host has learned a new Martial technique: Mystical Blazing Palm.]
[Host has learned a new Martial technique: Quick Sword Draw.]
There was nothing interesting in the memories of the twenty-six cultivators in the QI Gathering realm except for their fighting experience that Li Jing kept. However, the memories of the commander, whose name was Long Yu, were very satisfying. He knew a lot about this place and the Sky Jade Kingdom, he was proficient with a long sword, had a lot of fighting experience, and although his Cultivation method was useless for Li Jing, he still knew two Martial techniques: Mystical Blazing Palm which was a Middle-grade Mortal Martial technique and Quick Sword Draw which was a Low-grade Mortal Martial technique.
Next, Li Jing took the spatial ring of the commander as well as his long sword and inspected its content.
Inside, there were more than 5000 Spirit Stones, about a hundred of Qi Gathering Pills, some Yellow-grade spiritual weapons, some clothes, a map of the kingdom, the Black Tiger's next attack plans, and some other useless items…
'Very good! Now, let's see my progress.' He thought as he displayed his status screen.
[----------STATUS---------
Experience Points (XP): 145466
XP / hour: 84
Strength: 39567 Jin
Soul Strength: 422
Qi cultivation realm: Foundation Establishment I (XP: 0/40000)
Body cultivation realm: Skin Refining V (XP: 0/30000)
Lifespan: 1250 Years
Talent: A-grade
Bloodlines: [Soul Devourer Evil Metallic Boar], [Minor Thunder Dragon]
Perks: [Appraisal], [Full Recovery], [Exchange]
Elemental affinities: [Lightning], [Dark]
Cultivation methods: [Li clan's method], [Unholy Dark Art]
Martial techniques: [Elusive Smoke Steps], [Instant Flash Step], [Hammer Fist], [Dark Command], [Power Slash], [Shield of the Four Truths], [Mystical Blazing Palm], [Quick Sword Draw]
Bloodline skills: [Heavenly Thunder Breath], [Dragon's Talent]
--------------------------]
According to the commander's memory and his knowledge of the web novel, the second commander was a woman named Yang Rong who used poison as her main weapon.
Li Jing's Qi reserve was almost half empty, it meant that he couldn't repeatedly use his Elusive Smoke Steps technique. Therefore, if he wanted to avoid being poisoned, he had to make sure that his body would be strong enough to not be pierced by her poisonous weapons.
Moreover, he knew that the third commander was an expert in hand-to-hand combat who possessed formidable strength so he also needed a strong body to resist his attacks.
For these reasons, Li Jing decided to increase his Body cultivation realm as much as he could. Although he didn't have enough Experience Points to reach the Bronze Body realm, he was confident that increasing his Body cultivation realm by just three levels would be enough to fight the next two commanders without risk.
'Use 105000 XP to increase my Body cultivation realm.' He thought.
[105000 XP has been used. Remaining XP: 40466.]
Just like the first time he increased his Body cultivation realm, Li Jing felt like his skin was pierced by thousands of needles as it was becoming more solid and stronger second after second.
[Congratulations! Host has reached the eighth level of the Skin Refining realm.]
Now that Li Jing was ready, he walked towards the second level of the cave.