"Duan Chenzhou sent you because he has his eye on my ultimate trump card: the Nourishing Stance Bow Skill."
’Nourishing Stance... a bow skill?’
’This is amazing!’
’No wonder Master Duan once mentioned that Lord Gu was a master archer!’
’An inch of length is an inch of strength. If I could wield a Treasure Bow and loose three arrows from a thousand paces, whether for Mountain Hunting or battling another person... a longbow and a saber... It would be another tool in my arsenal, another guarantee of victory!’
’And with the Spiritual Sense I gained from my Mountain and Sea Search Innate Talent...’
’Paired with the Nourishing Stance Bow Skill...’
’Wouldn’t I be able to roam these mountains uncontested!?’
’A shame I can’t have the bow for myself, but a Seventh-Grade Treasure Bow... could I borrow it for a little while?’
Ji Xiu’s eyes lit up.
"Lord Gu, please teach me!"
"What’s the rush? We’ll head up the mountain first. You’re a Bone Tempering Martial Artist; shooting at wooden targets is completely useless for you. You need to practice on Enlightened Little Demons!"
"This is the perfect chance for me to teach you how to hunt down those cunning Demon Beasts and Spirit Monsters. If everyone went on a Mountain Hunt the way Duan Chenzhou does..."
"...he’d be lucky to eat one hot meal his whole life!"
...
「On a mountain path, five hundred li outside Anning County.」
SWOOSH, SWOOSH SWOOSH!
Figures of Long-armed Ancient Apes, covered head to toe in white fur, their eyes glowing crimson, swung from vine to vine, hurtling through the dense canopy of ancient trees.
"To find the dragon’s vein and part the gilded earth, watch the winding mountain’s girth; each coil a gate, each trial a test..."
Hunted by a pack of ape Demons—some at the Bone Tempering level, others even at Skin Refining, with decades or even a hundred years of Dao Practice—a young girl with an agile figure and a grimy face scrambled through the undergrowth, her hair tied back in a ponytail, muttering the verse as she ran.
When she noticed that the number of Enlightened Demons chasing her from the direction of the Earth Dragon Cave was growing, and that they were all apes, her face went deathly pale.
"’I’m doomed, I’m doomed! It’s all over!’"
She pulled a Red Pill marked with two Blood Patterns from inside her robes, her face a mask of misery.
"’I... I just thought the feng shui here looked promising! I figured there’d be a good haul! How did I end up digging straight into the Earth Dragon Cave and desecrating some Great Demon’s ancestral tomb?!’"
"’Heavens have mercy! Please stop chasing me! I really didn’t mean to do it!’"
Demon Pills are only produced by Demons that have achieved a certain level of power.
Even the most common type, one with a single Blood Pattern, could only be formed by a Demon with a Hundred Years of Dao Practice.
The Earth Dragon Cave outside Anning County, however, had once been corrupted by the Abyss Ruins.
As a result, the cultivation of the beasts in this region was vastly accelerated. Aside from certain major bottlenecks, like the hundred-year or thousand-year thresholds which remained incredibly difficult to cross, one month of their Cultivation was equivalent to a normal year’s worth.
This was one of the calamities that an Outer Dao, the Abyss Ruins Realm, could inflict upon the Celestial Universe of the Great Xuan: the creation of Demons, and even corrupted humans who became Demons themselves.
Legend told of an expert of the Titled Martial Dao who fell into the Abyss Ruins and was corrupted. He transformed into a Demon, retaining his sanity but needing to feed on the vitality of humans to survive. Though his appearance remained unchanged, his power grew to a terrifying degree.
He lay dormant for a long time, using an entire True Sect as his foundation, and devoured tens of thousands of living souls. It was said that this finally provoked the Great Xuan Court into summoning a living Martial Saint, who only barely managed to suppress him.
Even so, the fallout devastated an entire province, a truly horrific affair.
Such was the nature of an Outer Dao.
Systems like those of the Immortals or the Pure Land—the so-called seekers of truth or followers of Buddha—could, at the very least, be tolerated. At worst, their conflicts were merely disputes over the Dao.
But the Demons brought by the Abyss Ruins, or the Manifested Saints of Divine Beings who called for the Court’s overthrow...
If these were not annihilated and suppressed with the force of a thunderbolt...
Forget a thousand years, the Great Xuan would have been finished long ago.
And two Blood Patterns signified that the creature possessed a thousand years of Dao Practice when it was alive—the equivalent of a genuine Qi Cultivation Grandmaster!
However, the Demon Pill was dull and lackluster. It was clearly ancient and had lost much of its potency.
Even so, it was still far more powerful than ordinary Centennial Essence Blood!
"Sigh... these Demons are merciless! I’m done for!"
The young girl’s chest heaved as she ran, her face a mask of grief and indignation.
However.
FWOOSH!
Instantly, hearing the noise, more than a dozen Enlightened Demons looked up in alarm. But then their vision simply went dark, and they could see nothing at all.
A split second later.
A jet-black Profound Iron Heavy Arrow tore through the leaves with a RIIIP!
THUD!
It blasted through the chest of a Long-armed Ancient Ape in a shower of blood, the force of the impact pinning the creature’s corpse hard against the massive tree behind it.
FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH!
Several more Profound Iron Heavy Arrows followed in quick succession!
When Cai Ling’Er saw them, her face lit up with joy.
She had a good eye for quality and could tell with a single glance that the arrows were forged from the finest, thousand-times-hammered iron. Anyone who could afford such ammunition had to be a master capable of drawing a Hundred-Stone bow, one who had reached the Perfection stage for their Flesh, Bone, Skin, and Membrane!
’I’m saved!’
Faster than the eye could follow, she "swooshed" the Demon Pill with its two Blood Patterns into the front of her robes, subtly puffed out her chest, cleared her throat, and shouted at the top of her lungs:
"Brave hero, help me!"
However, the moment the words left her mouth.
A figure in the official robe of a Hundred Households officer darted out from the trees, a pained look on his face.
As he went, he casually shattered the skulls of the dozen remaining Ancient Apes one by one, his palm strikes landing like he was splitting open gourds. All the while, he was shouting furiously over his shoulder.
"Enough, enough! Stop shooting, stop shooting!"
"I know you’re a prodigy! I know you can draw a Fifty-Stone bow right off the bat, putting you on par with Bone Tempering Perfection! And I know you grasped the very essence of my Arrow Stance: Dusk Crows on your first try!"
"But these Divine Strategy Armor-Piercing Arrows are incredibly expensive, you hear me?! I could pierce an Immortal Robe with a single shot! They’re not for a brat like you to waste like this!"
[Arrow Stance: Dusk Crows!]
[The crow’s eye darkens as twilight falls over heaven and earth. A Grandmaster of the bow created this technique after observing crows for three hundred days. When an arrow is loosed, the enemy is influenced by its Stance, and their vision grows dim and heavy. When practiced to the state of Great Success and its true meaning is grasped, the Stance can instantly overwhelm an opponent, blinding them for a moment, as if experiencing ’The Great Blackness That Veils the Eyes’!]