LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 564 - 564: 556
Chapter 564: 556
From a distance, the black shadow looked very much like a person.
Qin Niu didn’t dare to approach rashly, he cautiously advanced with his blade in hand.
The black shadow was still moving, entwined with several branches. This time, he saw clearly. It was indeed a person.
Unfortunately, he was a step too late; the person had already been killed by the branches.
The flesh had been rapidly drained of blood, leaving nothing but white bones and skin, as well as the clothes on the body.
Qin Niu forcefully used flames to drive away those branches and the unfortunate victim’s body collapsed powerlessly to the ground. It was no longer possible to distinguish the person’s features; only dry, wrinkled skin wrapped around the skeletal frame remained.
The person’s identity could vaguely be discerned from the clothes on his body.
He remembered he was a large and imposing middle-aged man with the cultivation power of an Immortal Master, and he had not expected such an unfortunate demise here.
After driving away the murderous branches, Qin Niu began to search the body for spoils of war.
He reached for the person’s clothes, where the treasures were sure to be hidden.
If he could get another Storage Bag, that would be great.
What Qin Niu currently lacked the most were advanced Elixirs and defensive gear. If he could get another Storage Bag, he could use one openly and keep the other concealed, specifically for storing important belongings.
Like silver notes, for instance.
“Ouch!”
He never expected to be bitten by something when he reached into the corpse’s embrace to search for treasure.
He quickly withdrew his hand and hastened to create distance.
Two blood holes appeared at the site of the bite, and the blood swiftly turned black. The skin around the wound was also rapidly darkening.
Clearly, it was highly poisonous.
Fortunately, he had a Black Spider Gu in his body, which could absorb almost all poisons. Moreover, the stronger the poison it absorbed, the quicker the Black Spider Gu’s strength increased.
The venom in his right hand was quickly devoured by the Black Spider Gu, and Qin Niu’s hand returned to normal.
The numb sensation had disappeared.
The blood flowing from the wound also turned back to its normal bright red color.
He circulated his Everlasting Spring Technique to heal the injury, and the two small blood holes soon healed as if nothing had happened.
Having taken such a loss, Qin Niu naturally would not let go of the poison hidden within the corpse.
This time, he used his Ink Blade to directly pry open the clothes on the corpse, and a small, completely black snake with a pair of horns on its head escaped in panic.
It was the one that had bitten him.
“You won’t get away!”
Qin Niu was quick to act, chopping down with his blade.
However, the little snake was quite formidable; it managed to dodge with a spring in its body.
Just as he was about to deal another blow, the Red-eyed Golden Toad in his basket made a move. Its long snake-like tongue shot out like lightning, pulling the little snake straight into its mouth, and then swallowed it whole.
“Wart Toad, well done!”
Qin Niu praised.
However, he soon noticed that the Red-eyed Golden Toad seemed to have been bitten; its body was quickly covered in a layer of black qi, a sign of poisoning.
“I’ll help you clear the poison!”
Qin Niu prepared to use the Black Spider Gu to help the Red-eyed Golden Toad detoxify.
But the Red-eyed Golden Toad refused.
It was naturally immune to most poisons, and being bitten by this unknown dual-horned little snake should not be fatal.
“Alright then, if you can’t hold out, I’ll help you detox later.”
Qin Niu didn’t worry about it further.
He hastened to loot the corpse for spoils of war.
He didn’t find a Storage Bag, but he did find two bottles of Elixirs, more than ten thousand taels of silver notes, and a small shield with ridged edges.
This shield was only the size of a palm, its body dark brown, not appearing to be made of metal.
What exactly the material was, he could not tell.
But he noticed faint, barely visible runes within the shield, and he felt secretly thrilled. Now that he possessed some high-level equipment, he had gained a bit of discernment.
Any pieces of equipment with such fine runes were good stuff.
Some might even possibly be magical treasures.
After turning over the corpse, Qin Niu discovered another treasure. A stream of Immortal Qi emitting a colorful halo was attached to the corpse’s spine.
“This is a good find, it’s come just in time for me,” he said.
Without another word, Qin Niu hastened to refine the stream of Immortal Qi.
He even neglected to study the small shield.
He had thought that refining the Immortal Qi would take at least an hour or two, but it turned out to be much easier than the first time he refined it.
It took only about half an hour for him to successfully refine the Immortal Qi.
As this stream of Immortal Qi entered his body, the Immortal Qi in his dantian grew stronger, evidently doubling in thickness.
It seemed his cultivation had also improved significantly.
Immortal Qi really was a good thing; if he came across more such opportunities to pick up bargains along the way, he wouldn’t mind picking up a few more streams.
With the spoils of battle collected, Qin Niu naturally would not stay here any longer.
He flew onward, studying the small shield he had just obtained.
He tried to infuse it with his cultivation power, but there were no apparent changes.
It was like pouring his cultivation power into an ordinary stone or piece of wood.
“Perhaps it needs to be refined before I can use it?” he wondered.
In the past, when Qin Niu had to refine such treasures, he could only use the most primitive method, dripping blood on them to claim ownership. This method was not always effective.
But now, he had learned a new method.
Directly using Immortal Qi to refine the small shield.
With his Immortal Qi now doubled in strength, it also significantly sped up the refinement of equipment, more than doubling the speed.
It didn’t take long for him to successfully refine the small shield.
He tried again to infuse a bit of his cultivation power into the small shield and “sizz,” the shield directly displayed a layer of aura as solid as reality on its surface. It was much stronger than the defensive shield of the King Pig Leather Armor.
“Could this small shield be a magical treasure?” Qin Niu wasn’t sure.
He still hadn’t cultivated mana, so even if he obtained a magical treasure, he couldn’t showcase its full power.
However, even if he could only utilize part of the small shield’s power, his defensive ability could still be increased several-fold.
Along the way, he continued to forge ahead, with his target being the mountain gate of the Hundred-Tempering Immortal Sect, a thousand miles away.
While dashing forward, he felt as if something had attacked his left ankle.
Looking down, he was faced again with a black snake with two horns on its head.
It was biting at Qin Niu’s left foot.
The snake’s sharp fangs tried to pierce through the King Pig Leather Armor, but failed to do so.
Although Qin Niu wasn’t afraid of its venom, he also didn’t dare let it bite him, so he quickly swung his Ink Blade to flick it away.
The snake, extremely agile, dodged the attack and sprang directly toward Qin Niu’s face.
Before Qin Niu could swing his blade a second time, the Red-eyed Golden Toad took action again, engulfing the snake as if it were swallowing a bug, rolling it into its mouth and swallowing it.
It was apparent that the black qi on the body of the Red-eyed Golden Toad had almost completely dissipated.
This indicated that the venom of the snake hadn’t caused too much harm to it.
However, as it swallowed the second snake, it seemed to have been bitten once more. The black qi that had faded reemerged, though it was lighter than the first bite.
Its resistance to the snake venom must have strengthened.
“I originally thought these horned snakes were the pets of the deceased Immortal Master, but it appears not to be the case,” he mused.
Qin Niu realized that the Immortal Master might not have been killed by the plants here, but rather was poisoned by the snake bites and got entangled by the branches while attempting to cure the poison, leading to his demise.
After all, those who can make it to the third stage, each and every one of them, has some life-saving trump cards.
That person also had a very decent shield, capable of withstanding most attacks.
Qin Niu had already run more than a hundred miles, and along the way, apart from encountering the deceased burly Immortal Master, he hadn’t come across any other challengers.
With only a little over a hundred people, this barren expanse was incredibly vast; it was normal for them not to come across each other.
He turned his head to check on the Red-eyed Golden Toad in the basket on his back; it seemed to be without any serious trouble.
It was diligently digesting the snake it had swallowed.