Chapter 11 - Moon Lotus Script

LingYue's eyes narrowed in realization as they roamed over the bodies as he panted, his eyes quickly noticing a small embroidered bag on the waste of the three.

He rose to his feet and looked around, quickly stashing the three bags into his chest, he then began to drag the corpses of Wan Tao and Liang Qingling.

He soon reached another hidden cache of his where the hole this time was above in a small secluded area covered by shadows.

He kept watch of the area to make sure he wasn't followed as he placed the corpses into the hole before entering it himself.

Upon entering the cleared area he made beforehand, he placed the corpses on the ground before checking their bodies carefully and upon finding nothing else he soon removed their clothing as he steeled his mind.

His jaw opened as hit bit down, tearing flesh and breaking bone as he ate, the taste was absolutely revolting but he continued because he could tell that due to these two being beginner martial cultivators or due to them being human, a massive amount of the red mist was produced.

* Crackkkk*

*Cruncckk*

Blood splattered as he chewed, blood running down the side of his mouth as he looked absolutely feral.

Soon he was bloated from what he ate, and a massive amount of red mist was concealed around him, so thick to the point it was viscous.

He began to practice the [Agile Crane's Body Tempering Art] as the mist began to quickly drill back into him. The speed of the viscous mist was hundreds of times faster than before and soon his muscles were finished as he noticed the mist began tempering his bones.

Within a week of this routine, his cultivation shot up drastically, as he soon completed the next realm which was the marrow.

Taking a break from his cultivation as the red mist vanished, he suddenly remembered the three embroidered bags and as he shuffled through the stuff he laid nearby he soon found them.

The most exquisite was the one he had taken from the girl, she was from a decent clan that had previous ties with the Blood Gate Cult, namely the Liang family.

The Liang Family was made of merchants and had quite the purchasing power, allowing this young miss to quickly step onto the path to cultivation.

Upon opening the bag, he found that all he saw in the neck of the pouch was a gray swirling mist. . .

"What the hell is this??" He couldn't help but exclaim as he turned the bag upside down and started to shake it.

Just as he was about to throw it away for being defective and strange, countless things began to pour out of it, from female clothes and undergarments to random pills and books.

Xiao LingYue's eyes widened at this harvest had stumbled across while glancing at the other two, less intricate bags as he sucked a cold breath.

He began sorting his loot as he took inventory; there were around 15 different bottles of pills, which were labelled as well as had their description, there were 4 books which were [Qi Breathing Mantra], [Cultivation Knowledge and Experiences], [ General Knowledge of the Barbaric South] and an [ Agility Art].

The first book he read was the [Cultivation Knowledge and Experiences] book which listed how cultivation improves the body and increases longevity as well as battle prowess.

It continued to label the Stages and realms within each stage.

The stages were:

The Body Tempering Stage which aimed to reconstruct the body to increase the capacity for strength and to lay a great foundation. This stage consisted of 6 separate realms, namely the Skin Tempering Realm, Muscle Transformation Realm, Bone Fortification Realm, Tendon Change Realm, Marrow Purification Realm and the Viscera Refinement Realm.

It went on to speak of the stage after The Body Tempering Stage which would be the [Meridian Opening Stage.

This stage aimed to open spiritual meridian points within the human body to make channels for the energy to pass through as well as having the meridians be able to store small deposits of Qi.

It didn't have a set realm but aimed to open a total of 36 different spiritual meridians.

Those who opened few could still advance to the stage but a forced breakthrough would injure one's foundation and would always be weaker than someone who had more spiritual meridians than you.

The next and final stage the book mentioned was the [Dantian Opening Stage] which made mentions opening the dantian and using that as the means to store all the accumulated energy one uses, which is the true first step on the way to immortal cultivation.

LingYue read this book repeatedly as it spoke of what to expect and look out for when going from Realm to Realm and Stage to Stage.

As he got more familiar, he swapped books to the Qi Breathing Mantra, which he had found in the girl's embroidered bag.

This breathing technique was a set of techniques that taught one how to cultivate from the beginning of The Body Tempering Stage to the Peak of the Meridian Opening Stage.

He also found out that the red mist was a form of blood qi which would not normally be shown out in the open.

Xiao LingYue rubbed his brows as he lamented,

" What I was doing was really wasteful."

With the Blood mist previously spiralling above him as he trained with no guidance, he was wasting around 40% of the Blood Qi.

LingYue looked over the cultivation book which was named [The Moon Lotus Mantra] this was normally targeted towards women who had a Cold and Yin affinity but being that his clan was the Snow Fox Clan, he believe had some affinity with these properties as well.

Before settling on the Mantra in his hand, he continued to peruse the books in front of him before turning his attention towards the other two embroidered bags.

Opening one of the embroidered bags and dumping everything he could, there wasn't a grand harvest like the ones previously, there was only a Blood Gate Identification token marked Fang Buhei, some spare clothes and a few vial of deep red pills.

The pills were low quality 'BloodFiend Pills', which could assist the cultivation of cultivators in the lower realms of the Body Tempering Stage, these were also used as a form of currency between the outer disciples of the Blood Gate Cult.

Upon reading the books, from the girl's embroidered bag, he had quite a comprehensive knowledge and tidbits of information about the Blood Gate Cult.

It seemed like whoever sent her was quite wary of her being cheated or unaware as they completely outfitted her with any information they could find.

Too bad she never even got a chance to enter the sect before she passed away. . .