Chapter 29
Chapter 29: Hunting Devil Cultivators
That day, back in the disciples’ courtyard, Shao Heng sat upright in her room.
In her qi sea dantian, the yellow sprout had been tempered again and again by nightly moonlight absorption. Its surface was now silver-white, faintly shimmering with a blue glow.
She held a pale yellow pill between her teeth—a first-grade Origin-Boosting Pill.
She wasn’t lacking resources, but as she cultivated deeper, she realized advancement couldn’t rely blindly on piling them up.
Even spirit stones—the universal currency—were compressed by earth-vein power. The spiritual qi within naturally leaned toward the earth element. If one cultivated with spirit stones day after day, earth qi would inevitably accumulate in the meridians over time, slowing spiritual power and making it sluggish.
Pills carried toxins. Spirit herbs left residual medicinal power that required long refinement, lest it build up and damage the meridians.
Shao Heng was always careful. Only now, as she charged a minor bottleneck, did she borrow the Origin-Boosting Pill to ensure success in a single attempt.
Spiritual power flowed through her meridians, refined again and again through each cycle, then gathered into the yellow sprout.
At a certain point, the yellow sprout reached saturation and pressed against its limit.
Shao Heng swallowed.
A vast surge of spiritual qi erupted at once. She guided it through the great cycle, then drove it forward again and again, continuously impacting the yellow sprout.
Boom.
A faint sound rang out from within her. Her body followed with a crackling series of pops like beans frying.
The yellow sprout doubled in size. Its surface patterns deepened, and within the silver cloud markings, faint golden light shimmered like threads of dawn.
By the time she refined most of the pill’s power, she had reached 303 cauldrons of spiritual power.
Shao Heng exhaled a stinking breath of black qi—pill toxins and bodily impurities expelled during the breakthrough.
“In a little over three months since I started cultivating, I’ve already advanced to the mid First Realm.” She flexed her fingers, feeling the steadier current of power beneath her skin. “At this speed, I might even break through to late stage again within half a year.”
“In the sect’s records, someone with high-grade aptitude needs about two years to break through to the late First Realm.”
A dangerous thought flickered—bright, tempting.
Was her aptitude truly only “high-grade”?
Or was there something above it?
She cut it off cleanly.
Thinking didn’t advance her cultivation. Action did.
Shao Heng stood, stretched, and loosened her shoulders.
“Now that I’ve reached the mid First Realm, I have to hurry and take tasks. To reach 2,100, I need to earn more than 20 contribution points a day.”
She tidied her appearance, pushed open the door, and headed for the Law Enforcement Pavilion.
Dark clouds smothered the sun. A storm was on the way.
It was already winter. Even in the cultivation world, the seasons still turned. The once-green peaks were wrapped in silver; rime frosted the air; the forest held only silence.
Then—movement.
A tall but gaunt gray wolf sprang from nowhere. As it ran, it shook loose snow piled on nearby branches, sending flakes tumbling down like scattered salt.
It was too fast for an ordinary beast. Bloodlight burned in its eyes as it lunged straight toward a spot in the snow.
Its claws and fangs tore through the drift, and the stench of a rotten wind burst outward—
—revealing the hidden woman beneath.
Shao Heng wore snow-colored clothing. The moment the wolf demon struck, green light curled around her feet. She slid back in a blur, retreating rapidly.
At the same time, her right hand gripped the limb of the Thousand-Strike Bow. With two fingers of her left hand, she plucked the string and drew it full, condensing spiritual power into a silver-cast arrow.
Totem patterns along the bow flickered and flowed into the shaft.
She released.
The arrow’s tail flared with silver flame like a meteor slicing the sky, shooting toward the wolf’s belly.
Blindingly fast.
The wolf demon twisted at the last instant, but the arrow still punched through its left shoulder.
Boom!
The spiritual power arrow detonated in rapid succession, dozens of explosions layered on top of each other. Half the wolf’s body was blown apart, blood and snow bursting into a red-white spray.
At the same moment, a dark glint struck from behind Shao Heng.
A blade pierced flesh—
—and the hand holding it felt as if it had stabbed into a stream.
Shao Heng slipped out of the man’s shadow, gaze like winter steel. As she turned, snow-white jade needles flashed from her sleeve.
Jade Bee Needles—a first-grade artifact.
Thirty-six needles formed a complete set, forged specifically to pierce protective spiritual power. Once refined, they moved like extensions of her own limbs.
Needle artifacts were known for their strange, vicious precision.
The jade needles pierced through the man’s blood-colored spiritual power. He dodged more than half, but 15 still punched through muscle and bone, bursting out of his body in a glittering line.
He crashed to the ground and spat a curse. “I didn’t expect a righteous sect disciple to use poison—such filthy tricks!”
Shao Heng had coated the Jade Bee Needles with Green-Touch Mushroom poison—enough to cripple even a late First Realm cultivator.
He swallowed an Antidote Pill in time, but his pupils still drifted out of focus, and his limbs went slack.
Shao Heng didn’t bother answering his nonsense. With her spiritual sense, she drove the needles into the wolf demon’s throat, heart, eyes, spine—ending it cleanly.
Then she drew the bow again.
Spiritual power arrows tore through the air, aiming straight for the devil cultivator’s head.
“Dirty tricks?” she said, voice cold. “Who’s dirtier than you devil cultivators?”
“And since it works so well, do you think I don’t know exactly what it is?”
She never lowered the bow. Draw—release—draw—release.
In the space of a breath, dozens of arrows fell like meteors chasing the moon.
Second-Class Task: Hunt Tang Dong, a mid First Realm devil cultivator. Originally a rogue cultivator, he obtained the lower-grade method Blood Refining Art and has killed 37 people, using their blood to cultivate. Any disciple who accepts this task must complete the hunt within three days. Reward: 50 contribution points.
Devil cultivators were ruthless in temperament and methods. Failure was punished brutally. The contribution points reflected it.
Shao Heng could sense Tang Dong’s aura around 400 cauldrons. He had nearly 100 more cauldrons of foundation than she did—but with artifacts and immortal arts, she still had a chance.
Earlier, she’d hidden in the snowdrift and used Gray Cocoon to suppress her spiritual power aura. She hadn’t expected Tang Dong’s contracted wolf demon to have such a sharp nose—to be able to scent out a human through snow and wind.
To be thorough, when she first accepted tasks at the Law Enforcement Pavilion, she’d deliberately chosen gathering and chore tasks in front of others. Only after learning the pavilion’s discipline was strict—no one could casually reveal what tasks disciples had taken—had she begun secretly taking hunting missions.
Even then, she’d only completed a few. Her real combat experience was still thin.
Now that she’d been exposed, she could only seize the moment and strike like thunder.
Blast him into mush. Leave only what proved his identity.
Blood and snow churned together.
Then—something surged.
A blood shadow burst toward her.
“Even that didn’t kill him?”
Shao Heng’s heart sank for a fraction of a second.
She had already grasped the beginning essence of Three-Thousand-Li Moon. Her body moved like flowing light and shadow, elusive and hard to seize. The blood shadow struck empty air.
When she focused, she saw it clearly.
A mass of filthy blood writhed and reshaped itself into a human outline.
Most of it was still blurred, but the head formed sharply—Tang Dong’s face, grinning wide enough to make her skin crawl.
“A blood body from Blood Refining Art.”
Shao Heng had done her homework. Beyond the location information provided by the sect, she’d gathered what she could about Tang Dong’s methods.
She called on the Tai Yin cold now rooted in her yellow sprout.
“Waters divide, currents disorder—seize the cold, bind the soul!”
Winter snow answered her like a thousand silent witnesses.
In an instant, the blood-man froze solid.
Shao Heng was already drawing again—
—but the frozen blood-man exploded.
Dozens of blood shadows shot out from within, fleeing in every direction like a swarm.
Shao Heng activated the moon essence stored in her body and split into three Phantom Bodies. Each intercepted with different methods—cutting off paths, sealing retreats, shattering shadows—
—until a scream rang out from one of them.
All three Phantom Bodies dispersed at once.
The snow-clad girl’s eyes sharpened like a hawk’s.
She poured spiritual power into the Thousand-Strike Bow until the limb hummed.
A wisp of black qi slipped from her fingertips and coiled around the silver arrow like a dragon.
Then—layered with a hundredfold might—she released.