I got lucky.

The beast king's corpse kept all other life away from the cave. Not a single animal dared to tread anywhere near its cave. Li Jun guided the martial artists into the cave, and each stood shocked by the scene before them.

The snake's mouth looked as if it had been blown up with explosives, and the slashes in its eyeballs would have made a regular person vomit at the sight of it. But the five martial artists were impressed more than they were sickened by the scene. 

"You did all this yourself?" One of the guards turned to Li Jun. 

"I got lucky. It would have killed me if I didn't use all my strength." He said, trying to downplay what had happened. 

He needed to find out what the blue flames were and where they had come from. He believed it had something to do with the cultivation technique he had gotten from the golden scroll since a layer of ice would often freeze his surroundings whenever he cultivated. 

"Not many people at the second stage of body refining would even make it out alive after being attacked by a beast king. It's no wonder Master Shen has taken you as a disciple." The guard said with an approving smile.

It seemed being handpicked by the spirit city's most renowned cultivator carried more benefits than he thought it would. They wouldn't even question his techniques since they assumed it was taught by Master Shen.

The city lord wasn't convinced. No matter how he looked at it, he just couldn't understand how Li Jun could have killed the beast. He doubted that most of his guards could have killed it on their own, so how could a child not only kill it but destroy half of its face in what looked to be a single attack?

Shen Tai quickly ordered the guards to portion and gather the meat. Three of them piled it up as the remaining guard filled universe bags with the snake's flesh until it was all gone. 

"Its skin is tough; it could survive an attack from a peak body-refining martial artist. Its bones can also be turned into weapons." Shen Tai said out loud as he ran his fingers across the snake's skin.

"This will fetch a lot at auction. What do you think about five hundred gold for the skin and a thousand for the meat?" He asked as his eyes settled on Li Jun.

'One thousand five hundred gold?' It took him a moment to process the figure in his head. He had never seen so much money in his life, let alone thought about owning that much. 

"Yes, that seems reasonable. But do you mind if I keep the bag that I filled? We can bring the price down a little." Li Jun said he wanted to use the rich spiritual energy to improve his strength, and he also thought about the fact that the servants hadn't eaten meat in many years. 

With money from the beast king and the meat from the snake, he could pay them back for all the years they had stood by his side despite the pressure from his uncle Li Hong.

"That's fine, money isn't an issue. I have already given you a price, and one bag of meat is almost nothing compared to the amount we've gathered." Shen Tai said as he handed him a leather pouch filled with gold coins.

Li Jun was tempted to count it, but he didn't want to be disrespectful. He put it into his universe bag and bowed to show his gratitude.

"Thank you, sir. But I should get going. I haven't been home in a few days." Li Jun smiled as he excused himself and began to walk out of the cave.

The guards stopped working and fell into line. They each wore serious expressions as they looked toward the city lord, their bodies stiff as if they were awaiting a command. 

"He seems like a good kid." Shen Tai sighed. "Let him go. It isn't my place to decide his fate."

The guards relaxed and returned to collecting the materials left behind by the beast king.

Li Jun walked back through the forest with a smile on his face. He had made a fortune. A single gold coin was equivalent to what it would take to feed a beggar for an entire year. Five gold coins were the usual income for someone who worked a labor-intensive job. Noble families that owned businesses would usually earn just over a thousand gold coins each year, and Li Jun had earned more than that from a single beast.

He stopped to buy some bread and tipped the baker with what was left from a single gold coin and then bought another universe bag before he made his way home. He piled three stacks of fifty gold coins and gave one to each of the maids, at first they didn't want to accept it but after showing them his pouch full of coins they didn't hold back. 

He ate snake meat with the three of them before heading outside to practice. Since he owned a sword he wanted to make the most of it. He took out the book named Heaven splitting sword art.

"Hmm," He muttered as he read the description. The technique contained three moves. A powerful overhead strike, a quick slash from waist height, and then a mix of the two at diagonal angles.

It seemed the trick to the technique was to make sure that spiritual energy flowed through the correct muscles. He first tried the over head strike since he was now used to swinging an axe the same way. 

Nothing happened right away, but after circulating energy to his shoulders as he started the strike and then to his forearms and wrists as he was about to complete the strike, a powerful boom shot out from the blade.

The stone floor gained a deep scratch that was nearly three meters in length. It expanded way past the tip of the blade and it seemed to be a technique that would only get stronger with the more his cultivation base progressed.

'All of these techniques seem simple, but incredible.' He thought now that he knew the basics for iron mountain palm strikes, phantom steps and heaven splitting sword strike.

The only technique he had yet to touch was the one called hand of annihilation. Every time he so much as touched the book, he felt as if his heart would explode from the intense aura of death that it emitted. 

Li Jun practiced into the night and then cultivated until morning. It was finally time to visit Master Shen again.