Strange mark on the chest

Li Wei stared at his chest and noticed a dragon-shaped mark had appeared.

'What does this mark mean?', Li Wei thought worriedly as he continued to absorb blood.

'For now, it doesn't seem to do anything. When I return to the city, I need to investigate its meaning.'

Three hours later, Li Wei finished absorbing and refining all the blood he had obtained from the dragon.

'My physical strength has increased significantly, but it's still not enough to reach the second stage. My body still needs to improve more to withstand the second stage', Li Wei thought as he felt his new strength.

'I need to kill another dragon to reach the second stage, but for now, I need to investigate what this mark on my chest is', Li Wei thought as he returned to the city.

In the city, Li Wei subdued some criminals and asked them where he could buy information.

They told him he could buy information from an organization called the Dark Network.

After following directions and walking through the city, he arrived at a peculiar house where Li Wei had to give a password to enter.

Once inside the house, he walked down a hallway until he entered a room where a man was hiding his identity with a mask.

"Welcome, dear customer. What do you wish to know?", said the employee.

'This is more professional than the last time I had to buy information', Li Wei thought.

"I want to know what this mark means", Li Wei said, showing the dragon-shaped mark on his chest.

The employee was a bit surprised to see that mark, as it was not common.

"The price for that information is 2000 spiritual stones", said the employee.

"Very well, here you go", Li Wei said as he took out a bag of spiritual stones and handed it to the employee.

After the employee took the bag and counted the spiritual stones, he told Li Wei, "That mark is called the dragon's curse. It appears when you kill a dragon."

"The brand works like a tracker. If a strong dragon senses the mark, it will not hesitate to hunt you down to kill you. But if it's a weaker dragon than you, it will not hesitate to flee."

After hearing this, Li Wei thought, 'Damn, this changes my plans. I had planned to infiltrate the dragon island using my stealth technique.'

'Now it's impossible to do that. In fact, it's better for me to leave this place because if any dragon discovers that I have this mark, it will not hesitate to call the others to come and kill me.'

'I need to come up with a new plan to kill dragons', Li Wei thought.

"Thank you for the information", Li Wei said as he left.

"You are welcome", said the employee as he watched Li Wei leave.

As Li Wei was walking through the streets of the city, thinking of a new plan, he saw a very interesting opportunity that gave him new ideas.

[Future opportunity: 1 month later, you will accidentally find a grade 4 spiritual vein.]

'That opportunity is incredible. My old sect could prosper because they had a grade 4 spiritual vein', Li Wei thought as he stealthily followed the man to kill him and prevent him from discovering the opportunity in the future.

'With that spiritual vein, I could train subordinates to help me find dragons that don't live on the dragon island. It would be a good base of operations.'

After following the man for a while, when he reached a secluded place, the opportunity to kill him finally arrived. But Li Wei stopped after seeing a little girl run and hug him while calling him daddy.

This scene left Li Wei a bit stunned because it made him realize that he was becoming a monster.

'When did I start indiscriminately killing innocent people?', Li Wei thought as he let the man go.

'I don't want to kill innocent people, I need to regain control over my actions or I will end up becoming a psychopath.'

'This experience will serve me to not repeat these mistakes.'

...

Five days later, Li Wei arrived at a mountain, following the golden line that marked the opportunity.

Upon arrival, Li Wei noticed a cave in the mountain that had an abnormal amount of spiritual energy.

After approaching and entering to explore, he found that the spiritual energy was coming out of a hole in a wall.

Li Wei decided to destroy the wall, and as soon as he did, a large amount of spiritual energy emerged, filling the entire cave and its surroundings.

The spiritual energy had been accumulating in this place for a long time due to a natural formation that retained all the spiritual energy produced by the spiritual vein.

'The energy has been accumulating here for so long that it formed a pool of liquid spiritual energy.'

'With this amount of spiritual energy, my training speed will increase several times.'

Li Wei quickly sat down to meditate while performing his cultivation technique to absorb all the energy in this place.

He spent 20 days training non-stop until he finally absorbed all the accumulated spiritual energy.

'I have reached the mid-level of the golden core realm, almost entering the high level', Li Wei thought as he got up and came out of his meditation state.

'The spiritual energy in the mountain is increasing over time; it is already twice the average', Li Wei thought after leaving the cave and observing the situation on the mountain.

'I should start practicing formations to protect and hide this place', Li Wei thought as he began to practice based on the information he had in his memory about formations.

Before creating a formation, one needs to have knowledge about the terrain where the formation is made, the design of the formation, the materials used to create a formation, the way to create inscriptions, and the method to establish the core of the formation.

Li Wei already knew all this because the inheritance from the rank 4 formation master he obtained had imprinted all this knowledge in his memory. He already knew the theoretical part, and the only thing he lacked was the practical part.

'I will start with the protective formation because it is the easiest', Li Wei thought.

The first thing he did was make a small circle with 8 spiritual stones to define a perimeter, and the second step was to place a core for the formation, which in this case was also a spiritual stone.

Then Li Wei proceeded to create inscriptions with his spiritual energy, connecting the 8 spiritual stones to form a circle around the core.

Then he created another type of inscription on the spiritual stone in the center to select it as the core of the formation.

The last step was to connect the core with the surrounding circle, and after Li Wei finished doing this, he activated the formation by injecting a bit of spiritual energy into the core.

A small barrier formed, and Li Wei thought he had succeeded, but moments later, the barrier broke.

'Damn, where did I fail?'