The Middle-aged Cultivator, Fierce Battle with the Purple Lightning Bell

The moment the middle-aged cultivator withdrew his spiritual blade and went into a defensive stance, the five of them immediately felt something was off. Then they saw him pop some kind of pill, and suddenly, the enemy's blue bar shot up from almost empty to full, almost overflowing. With their experience in games, they knew exactly what was about to happen—the boss was about to pull off a big move. They quickly chatted in the team chat, scattered in different directions, topped off their health, and braced themselves to take whatever crazy attack the boss had in store.

Then, out of nowhere, a golden bell appeared above the cultivator's head. It was small, about the size of a child's toy, and it looked beautifully crafted, shining with golden light. As the cultivator continued to perform hand signs, the bell began spinning in the air, gathering hundreds of lightning bolts that danced around it like electric snakes. The air even started to rumble with a faint thunderous sound.

Seeing this, everyone couldn't help but feel their hearts race in fear, but there was nothing they could do except grit their teeth and hold on.

The cultivator's face quickly drained of color. Struggling, he made one final hand sign and yelled "Go!"—throwing the golden bell in their direction. After that, he didn't care what happened next, popping two more pills and sitting down to meditate, as though this was no big deal.

The golden bell shot forward, spinning rapidly in the air, almost like a ghostly blur. Suddenly, in the silence of the forest, there was a massive clap of thunder, and in an instant, the sky lit up with countless bolts of lightning, as thick as a child's arm. They came down one after another, striking the ground like sharp blades, their thunderous roar shaking the earth beneath them. The blinding light made it impossible to see what was going on.

The cultivator glanced up lazily, a smug expression on his face. He figured that even if he couldn't survive the attack, no one else would either. He then looked at the sky—thankfully, it was late and they were in a remote area. With all this noise, no foundation-building cultivators would hear it, and his bell would be safe.

Then he remembered something, a sudden thought crossing his mind. He cursed himself. "D*mn it, I didn't leave a way to interrogate that beast master kid. What if he survives this? How am I going to get the details of his techniques now?" He hadn't expected the golden bell to be so hard to control. Once the spiritual power was in, it was out of his hands. Still, he thought to himself, "After this is over, I'll just take that kid's storage ring. Maybe there's something useful in there." He quickly dismissed the worry.

A few moments later, the golden bell's light faded, and it slowly descended back to the cultivator's hand. The lightning bolts vanished, leaving behind nothing but deep holes in the ground—each one about the size of a fist—burnt and smoking.

The cultivator casually looked around, expecting to see his five targets dead on the ground. But to his shock, he almost dropped his jaw. He gasped, "How is this possible?!"

Instead of the five lying dead, as he had predicted, they were all still standing. Sure, they were covered in soot, their clothes torn, their hair standing on end, but they were still alive.

The beast master kid was holding some strange staff, its tip glowing with spiritual power, and any injuries he'd sustained were rapidly healing right before their eyes. And where had that giant bear gone? It seemed to have run off.

One of the female cultivators was encased in a massive block of ice. With a snap of her fingers, the ice vanished, and she stood up, completely fine, not a single drop of water on her or her clothes.

As for the guy who seemed to be a sword cultivator, he was covered in cuts, clearly in bad shape, and leaning heavily on his massive sword to stay upright. However, around him, a circle of shields was spinning, constantly deflecting any incoming attacks. It seemed like he wasn't going to die just yet either.

Forget about the shock he felt. At the same time, in the forest, the cultivator was still stunned. The demon cultivator was too strong, and the way she healed her comrades made it seem like they'd be fine no matter what came their way.

Meanwhile, the others were starting to get their bearings back. Du Chen, completely p*ss*d off and still full of adrenaline, was grumbling loudly: "This old b*st*rd really tried to take us down! We've gotta focus fire on him! If he gets that d*mn bell back out, we'll be in real trouble this time!"

Even the others, still rattled from almost dying earlier, couldn't help but agree. They didn't wait for their health and energy to be fully restored—this was their chance to finish the boss off before he had time to recover.

After a brutal onslaught of concentrated attacks, the middle-aged cultivator, exhausted from overusing his powerful artifact, finally went down. The five of them let out a collective sigh of relief. As usual, Du Chen went straight for the loot, and the rest of them quickly sat down to recharge.

Strutting over with his big sword, Du Chen kicked the cultivator's body twice, cursing, "Hah! You thought you could mess with us, huh? You thought you could show off, use that d*mn bell to strike us down? I've taken a lightning strike before—what makes you think that's gonna do anything? Haha! I'm still standing!"

Still grumbling, Du Chen kicked the corpse a few more times before crouching down to grab the loot, but when his fingers touched the soft flesh, he froze. A chill ran down his spine, and he suddenly realized something.

He swallowed hard, his face paling. He staggered back, bumping into Canghai, and collapsed to the ground, grabbing onto his sleeve. He whispered, barely able to speak, "Hey... I think... we really just killed someone."

His words, even though they were almost a whisper, were crystal clear in the team chat. The others, who had only just started to relax after narrowly avoiding death, suddenly froze. They hadn't even realized it until Du Chen said it. This wasn't a game anymore. They weren't in some virtual world. This was real, and now they had actually taken a life. Everyone's face immediately turned ashen.

Santan, unable to handle it, turned her gaze toward the body, clutched her mouth, and scrambled away, running to the edge of the forest to throw up. Canghai, hearing Du Chen, couldn't help but feel his throat tighten. Seeing that Santan was the first to crack, he hurried after her, trying to comfort her.

"Don't overthink it. This was self-defense. That guy was trying to kill us! I was out of mana and almost died myself. Legally, this is justifiable defense, alright? Don't carry any guilt. And anyway, you were mostly healing, so you barely even attacked. I don't think you could've killed anyone if you tried."

The other three, who had been sitting nearby, were already feeling nauseous and on edge. Their minds were blank, and their whole bodies were covered in cold sweat. They were horrified by the thought of what they'd just done. But after hearing Cang Hai's words, they all started to feel a little better. At least the guilt in their hearts eased up a bit. However, when they heard the second half of his sentence, they couldn't help but raise their eyebrows—he was basically saying that it was their fault, and not Sāntián's, right? Cang Hai, old man, you're really protecting that kid a little too much, huh?

Anyway, despite all of that, Cang Hai's words had successfully lifted the weight off their shoulders. Even Du Chen, who had nerves like steel cables, immediately relaxed and, with no hesitation, went straight to search the body.

So, when Du Chen started digging through the middle-aged cultivator's sleeves and belt, even taking his sparkling silver robe off, the other four could only twitch at the corners of their mouths, unable to say a word. Seems like his childhood pig slaughtering practice had done wonders for his courage.

By the time night was falling, their hope of reaching Zhenlian City before dark was shot. It was too dangerous to travel through the forest at night, so they decided to camp out for the night.

The Li family, who had run off earlier, hadn't gone far. When they saw that the danger had passed, they slowly returned. Upon seeing the body on the ground, they all covered their mouths in shock, instinctively keeping their distance from the group.

The older brother, who had been escorting the girl, had been too close and got caught in the surrounding lightning, tragically dying in the process. The girl was now crying over his corpse. Only Li Zhong remained calm and came over, asking if they needed help burying the body.

Du Chen, happy to have someone willing to help, immediately agreed. Li Zhong and his group quickly dug a large hole and buried the body. After that, they started setting up camp. The Li family also got to work, pitching in.

The five members of the team, though, were sitting aside, frowning and discussing their next move.

"Looks like this world has a profession called 'demonic cultivators,' and they're considered the main enemies of the righteous path. The moment that guy saw us, he just attacked without asking any questions. It's obvious there's some deep history between them. According to what he said, dark magic is pretty similar to demonic cultivation, so here's the problem for us: If we join one of the righteous sects now, little Yue might get noticed and treated as a demonic cultivator. Worse case, as soon as we enter the city, someone might spot him—especially with that little ghost hanging around. He's hard to miss."

Cang Hai was explaining the situation, laying out the risks.

Little Yue, knowing this all pointed to him, didn't want to trouble everyone, so he quickly spoke up: "Then I just won't join a sect. I'll find some random place for normal people to live. When you guys figure out how to get back to Earth, just take me with you. Problem solved."

The other four couldn't help but sweat. They knew the kid wasn't really aiming for anything big, but they didn't expect him to be this content with staying in one place. That mindset was a little too chill, wasn't it?

Tong Xinfen frowned. "But what if someone from the righteous path notices you? What are you gonna do then? You don't have any defense skills, so how come you didn't get injured when we were all getting hit?"

Little Yue scratched his head and flashed a pure little dimple as he laughed. "At first, I thought I wouldn't make it either, but I figured you guys would be fine, so I wasn't too worried. And then, suddenly, OX connected with me and shared my life force."

The others stared at him, wide-eyed. "OX?" They thought. "What the hell is that? Does it have a crazy long health bar? How could he stand there and not get hurt by all that lightning?" They couldn't help but feel a little bit of envy.

Du Chen was deep in concentration, relentlessly studying the newly acquired storage bag, muttering to himself, "Why do we have to join a sect? Can't we just cultivate on our own? Let me see if there's any cultivation method in here from that old guy…"

Cang Hai pushed up his glasses and explained, "You've read so many cultivation novels, and you still don't know? Almost every main character in those novels has a sect, either family traditions or joining a sect and then going solo. That's because the setting in those novels is usually based on ancient societies, where techniques were kept secret. They were passed down only between masters and disciples or within families—there's no such thing as sharing it openly. So, if we don't join a sect, there's no way we can learn any cultivation methods…"

As they were talking, Du Chen, for some reason, suddenly figured out how to open the storage bag. He chuckled to himself, reached in, and pulled out a jade slip, proudly showing it to the others, saying, "Look, isn't this a cultivation method?"

"How did you know?" Sang Tian asked curiously, leaning over to take a look at the jade slip. She didn't say anything after that.

It was indeed a cultivation method, as the words "Xu Tu Method" were clearly engraved on the jade slip.

Cang Hai was a little stumped. He coughed a couple of times and then continued, "Even if we accidentally get one, it's still hard to read, let alone understand…"

"It can't be that hard. They've written about the method to read it in novels." Du Chen interrupted again, placing the jade slip on his forehead.

"Really? You're just making assumptions. You can't take novels that literally…"

"Haha! It's so easy!" Du Chen suddenly grinned and laughed out loud. "As soon as I put it on my head, the system asked me, 'Would you like to learn the Xu Tu Method?' Of course I said yes, and then I learned it. Ha-ha-ha, see? Just like that!"