Fruitful Slaughter

There was a dark-haired boy, eyes closed and legs folded, who was currently cultivating energy and circulating it around his body. This was also a part of the Refining stage of Esoteric Depths. If all it could do was turn anything into potential energy, then it would stop at being just a powerful Profound Art.

However, it could do more than that. This was a freakish art that was used by Zhou Ying when he was in the Divine Realm, which was more than enough to be a testament to its might. What he was doing was using the energy inside of his body to strengthen his skin, muscles, and bones.

Zhou Ying was still far away from using profound energy to quench and strengthen his organs because of a lack of skill, but he could at least do this much.

He eyed a pill, which he determined was used to recover profound energy. It had quite a bit of impurities in it, but trivialities like that didn't matter to the young cultivator. He threw it in his mouth and transformed everything, impurities and all, into pure profound energy. He picked up another pill that possessed a different color than the other one. It was bright green.

Zhou Ying tossed it into his mouth and turned that into energy as well.

If the people he robbed were to see what a wasteful act he was doing, they'd run up to Zhou Ying and slap half of his teeth out. Those were Poison Breaking Pills of a basic kind that were used to recover from a general amount of poisons, venoms, and other toxic substances. They were never made with the intention to help improve one's cultivation, yet they were forcibly transformed into just that.

Zhou Ying using it for pure cultivation would drive anyone insane. However, Zhou Ying was possibly the only person in this realm who could treat pills like these as cultivation boosters.

Though he didn't actually use it to directly increase his profound strength, he still made use of it to increase his power in general. After about an hour and five liberal uses of pills, Zhou Ying's bodily strength took a leap forward.

He sent out a punch and was satisfied by the limberness in his body and the inner force that was beginning to build up. This was also another way of setting a foundation.

His satisfaction, however, became short-lived; his small smile reversed into a frown.

"What am I getting satisfied for? This isn't enough." Zhou Ying slapped his cheeks and pulled out the rest of the pills. He sped up his cultivation and downed the pills faster while revolving his profound energy at a dangerously forced speed. Profound energy was generated and consumed at a rapid rate, the cycle being repeated at an increasingly faster rate.

Hours passed and morning became noon.

Zhou Ying acquired fifteen opened profound entrances and he stepped into the fifth level of the Elementary Profound Realm.

His speed might've been considered heaven-defying where he's at, but he can't hold himself to those low standards. He needs to be even faster and set an even firmer foundation if he wants the strength to achieve his revenge. Inside his clenched fists was wrathful determination and sorrowful resolve.

Zhou Ying leapt off the tree branch, finished with all of the cultivation resources he spontaneously acquired. Hunting profound beasts would speed up his cultivation faster than downing pills because there's a larger amount of potential energy in those beasts.

Fur, blood, meat, bones, organs; Zhou Ying won't let anything go to waste.

He drew his sword and made a slight cut on his arm, dripping blood on the ground to attract beasts to his location. He walked around for less than five minutes and there were already low howls showing that his little efforts paid off greatly.

"How kind of them to not launch a sneak attack."

Wild wolves prowled through the thickets and circled Zhou Ying while letting out threatening growls. Before they could tighten their encirclement, the human cultivator launched an aggressive attack first, slicing down at a wolf's side with great vigor.

The slash was a killing blow that spilled out the organs of the beast and triggered the wolf's pack coordinated attack. Their instincts guided them to plan an avenue of attack, yet the perfect plan was broken in their eyes and they descended into irrationality from seeing one of their own get slaughtered.

Eyes turned red as the wolves leapt with their vicious jaws ready to tear the boy apart.

Zhou Ying widened his stance, foot pivoting from slashing the first wolf. He spun with sword in hand and created a circle of death around him that caught two unlucky wolves.

Where a normal cultivator would take even a very slight moment to analyze the change in positioning before moving, Zhou Ying's combat-sensitive body moved on instinct and went toward a wolf that was backing away.

A swift stab through its neck stopped its movements relatively quickly with the other wolves now deciding to back off. Their wise decision came from fear due to three of them dying in less than a minute.

A slower beast had a sword pierce its back and nail it to the ground; Zhou Ying's arm was outstretched, like he just threw something.

From two wolves just the other day to four now. It would've been better if he got all of them, but he'll take what he can get for now. Dragging the corpse by the blade to the other three wolves, Zhou Ying collected them in a pile before sitting down.

His arm was still bleeding because of the cut being accidentally deeper than he intended. "If this attracts more beasts though, then that's fine as well."

Bottom's up.

Zhou Ying apathetically bit into the raw corpse of an Elementary Profound beast with no enjoyment on his face at all. The foul taste on his tongue, made worse by the fur he's chewing on, didn't distort his countenance in the slightest. The boy could never allow himself to complain while striving toward his ultimate goal.

Half of the energy went to strengthening parts of his body, and the other went into becoming a part of his profound energy and actually digesting it as proper food.

His teeth hurt, his gums bled, yet he turned these corpses into power. When he reached the bones, he took his blade and chopped at them until they were in smaller pieces he could swallow whole. He choked a few times, but within the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, there were only three wolves left.

All traces of one of them resided completely in Zhou Ying's Profound Veins. His body was bloated by the energy and he still had to process it with Esoteric Depths, yet he moved onto the next body.

He started with the neck, blood spraying on his face, and swallowed the meat whole. The blood crimson fluid was the liquid that helped down the solid meats easier.

Randomly, Zhou Ying's profound energy began compressing before creating a minor bang within his body, signifying a breakthrough. The density of his profound energy became greater and he stepped into the sixth level of his current weak realm.

"Awoooooooooooo!" Zhou Ying got to his feet immediately. He loosely balanced his sword horizontally at eye level, both hands clutching it with some aggression. As a large pack of wolves descended on him, he muttered to himself while observing his own feelings toward holding a sword.

"As I thought. A blade suits me better." With greater strength, the profound energy in his body revolved with vigor and Zhou Ying threw himself up at a tree to get the high ground. He intelligently used the environment to his advantage while slicing down branches to rain on the wolves.

He leapt all around the forest, only spending some time on the ground to cut up wolves before going back up, which infuriated them greatly. Those aggravated wolves then did something strange.

Much to Zhou Ying's consternation, they fled deeper into the forest.

This made the cultivator's wariness double. "They wouldn't just run off like that after being so thoroughly provoked."

He thought about this from a different perspective.

"If numbers don't work, then they're going to get stronger wolves... Just how big is this pack?" Did he somehow assault the largest wolf pack in the forest? If he's not careful, then there might be some Nascent Profound wolves coming at him.

He needs to increase his power before they come back again. No, that's only one of the reasons. The inherent power seeking nature born within all those who live in the universe; within Zhou Ying's remnants and the current individual regaining himself lays a maddening thirst for strength.

Zhou Ying leapt down at the large amount of wolf corpses before picking one up and biting into it. His thirst would not be sated by this, so he bit into it more, like a man possessed.

A large shadow overcast Zhou Ying's body. He threw himself to the side immediately.

A loud boom produced a large crater, startling the birds that were hanging by the trees and forcing them to fly off out of fear. Zhou Ying readied himself and analyzed the monster through the dispersing smoke.

It was a large, black-furred gorilla with crimson eyes. A line of saliva connected teeth together at it let loose a loud howl before stuffing one of the wolves in its mouth and swallowing it whole.

It was a Nascent Profound beast, something above than his current realm.

Yet, Zhou Ying couldn't care about that.

"He snatched my prey?" His eyes widened minutely before he charged straight at a superior foe with his sword raised. The monkey laughed mockingly before it threw out a fist backed by arms as thick as logs.

It wasn't taking an Elementary Profound cultivator seriously in the slightest. With Profound Beasts normally having stronger bodies than humans, fighting one that possesses greater profound strength is suicide.

For lower levels like these, however, battle experience can go a long way.

Zhou Ying barely dodged the first, the force of wind grazing his cheek and slightly cutting him, and he slashed down at the arm. The blade bit only a few centimeters into the arm before it was stopped by the profound beast's natural hardiness.

However it still drew blood. That angered the gorilla.

As a Nascent Profound beast, it was a ruler of this section of the forest. Being injured by a low level gnat infuriated it and it stopped holding back immediately.

A veritable storm of fists descended upon Zhou Ying's position, his speed too low to evade the attacks from a faster monster. A larger size didn't impede the superior speed of the primate in the slightest.

He could win this even without the speed disadvantage. Endless tales of battles etched within the damaged soul's memory converted to twitching muscles ready to burst out at a moment's notice. 

Zhou Ying asked himself for the briefest of moments what was the most efficient thing to do. Within a tenth of a breath, the answer made itself clear. A large fist inched close enough to where the cultivator could breathe on it.

At that instant, when the Nascent Profound beast, put all of its weight into offense, Zhou Ying cannabalized a large portion of the remaining impurities trapped in his body and converted it into profound energy.

Profound Veins that weren't fully ready and equipped to regulate such energy strained. Muscles and bones felt pressure. All that energy was converted into swift movements.

It gave him the boost to move faster than Zhou Ying normally could as he leapt over the two fists. He gripped his blade in reverse and chopped at the gorilla's neck with the bloody sword.

The beast roared, reflexively swinging its arms. The unpredictably wild swings were evaded by a hair's breadth, but the force of the swings nearly unbalanced Zhou Ying from its neck. The boy jammed the sword in deeper.

It sunk halfway in before the blade broke, yet the hardy gorilla still clung onto its life with burning eyes conveying both hatred in fear. Zhou Ying then burned away all remaining impurities and kicked the part of the blade stuck inside, decapitating the beast.

"Ugh." Hairline fractures were all over many bones and there was muscle tearing as well. That's the price to pay for producing power greater than what one can normally handle.

"This body isn't in good enough condition to keep fighting. The blood will attract more beasts." He raised a trembling hand over his head, covering the light breaking through the foliage. He squinted his eyes and decided his next course of action.

Zhou Ying rose his broken blade and chopped at the corpse of the Nascent Profound beast. He was looking for a Profound Core, which only forms in beasts of this realm or higher. It would be very fruitful to his prowess if he were to digest it.

The remaining parts of the blade chipped at the durable body, yet its open chest revealed a shining orange orb ripe for the taking.

"Why was there a beast of that power here in the first place?" The blood-covered boy had some questions and doubts on his mind, but he'll have to think about that later.

His heart teared at the notion that he had to leave those corpses without eating them. He at least took the head of the gorilla, so he could have some extra nourishment.