Chapter 3: Secret Sword Of Gluttony, Donning A New Skin
Fang Shu took down the yellow-skinned gourd from his waist and began collecting the monster hearts on the cliff.
He skillfully dissected the organs, drew out the essence blood within, and dripped it into the gourd.
This time, he had risked his life and disguised himself precisely to obtain those few drops of heart blood from the tips of this group of monsters’ hearts.
While extracting the blood.
Although he had already stored the long tongue sword in his mouth and belly, he still felt a surge of saliva in his mouth, an unbearable hunger, and overwhelming greed.
After busying himself for quite a while, without letting a single monster go, he finally filled the yellow-skinned gourd.
Fang Shu shook the heavy gourd, involuntarily stroking his abdomen, his face full of joy:
“With food and drink, I can finally temporarily avoid being exploited and tormented by this thing.”
He was not a true immortal cultivator; he was currently just a mortal who had mastered magic.
The magic he had mastered was called《Secret Mouth-Sword Technique》, which could cultivate a person’s tongue into a long tongue sword that could be extended or retracted, hardened or softened.
When using it, it could spit out the tongue ghost-like to kill enemies, or detach the long tongue to wield it like a long sword or whip in hand against foes.
However, cultivating this magic was quite arduous.
Generally, one first had to cut out the cultivator’s tongue, process it according to the method, and then cultivate it as a magic tool; the process was not only painful but also carried significant risk of failure.
One slip, and it was easy to end up with a dead tongue that could not be reattached.
Of course, Fang Shu had not gone through this brutal process.
He had a second uncle in the cultivation world who directly gave him a demon tongue for his cultivation use.
However, even after successfully refining the long tongue sword and incorporating it into his body, it would ceaselessly draw essence blood from the cultivator every moment to nourish the tongue body.
One day without satisfaction, it would not let the cultivator off for a day.
This thing would also make the cultivator like a starving ghost possessed, with a throat like a needle’s eye, able only to drink water.
All ingested substances would first be intercepted and devoured by the long tongue sword, leaving not a grain of rice or drop of blood, truly demanding without limit and growing hungrier with more consumption.
Fang Shu had formally mastered the magic for less than a month; as a vigorous young man in his prime of qi and blood, he had already been drained to essence blood depletion, with limbs shriveled and thin, unable to endure further.
Fearing he would die in the mortal world before entering the cultivation world and finding his second uncle.
He had no choice but to venture out risking danger, seeking monsters and spirits everywhere, attempting to take their heart blood infused with demonic energy to feed his own long tongue sword.
Fortunately, his luck was good this time.
Not only had he stumbled upon a nest of monsters, but he had also safely eliminated them all without mishap, a perfectly fruitful harvest.
“With this gourd of heart blood, I should have no more worries about my life before entering the marketplace,” his eyes flickered as he secretly thought:
“It’s even possible that once this sword is fully fed, it could nourish me in return, helping me enter the Dao!”
When raising the long tongue sword, aside from harming the body, once it drank its fill of monster blood, the sword body would also feed back strands of qi and blood to Fang Shu.
Though not much, it was better than nothing.
Especially, if this sword devoured blood food with demonic energy or spiritual energy, the qi and blood it fed back would nourish and strengthen Fang Shu’s physical body.
For a moment, Fang Shu was lost in fantasies, his mind filled with longing for his future immortal path.
But soon, he promptly suppressed these stray thoughts.
He was now just a mortal who had not even stepped onto the immortal path, at best able to show off in front of mortal monsters and fiends.
Now that the hidden danger in his body was temporarily alleviated, the top priority was to quickly enter the immortal cultivator marketplace and mooch off his second uncle!
Continuing to linger in the mortal world, either the long tongue sword would suck him dry into a human husk one day, or he would encounter a more powerful monster one day and end up as monster dung.
Fang Shu immediately packed his baggage and prepared to leave this place.
But at that moment, in the area of the original restaurant hall, there were still two living creatures wriggling and whining, trying to attract his attention.
Fang Shu immediately walked over.
Those two living creatures were the skinny dog and white pig tied to two dead trees.
However, at present, they had also been tainted with monster blood and had transformed into a male and a female human form.
The two gazed at Fang Shu with tears streaming, full of hopeful expectation.
But as Fang Shu approached, he did not glance at the man and woman at all, instead squatting on the ground and examining the tiger skin and fox corpse with keen interest.
“After drying for so long, there shouldn’t be any more tricks left,” he said in a low voice.
Fang Shu picked up a hand bone and carefully poked at the old fox corpse, then flipped open the tiger skin.
The fox corpse showed no anomalies, but inside the tattered tiger skin were unexpectedly writings all over, immediately drawing Fang Shu’s attention.
The content on the tiger skin seemed to be a magic technique!
Fang Shu did not examine it closely but immediately covered the tiger skin and cautiously observed the surroundings.
There were no anomalies around, so Fang Shu marveled inwardly: “This old fox was a literate monster?”
According to his second uncle, once a monster could speak human language and recognize human writing, it was no different from a human and could be called a “monster person,” extremely prone to stepping onto the immortal path.
“Could this old fox have already stepped onto the immortal path and not be a mortal monster?” Fang Shu muttered inwardly, his mind tensing slightly.
At that moment, a sound continued from beside him: “Whimper, whimper whimper!”
It was that pair of pig-dog man and woman; they were still struggling, trying to attract Fang Shu’s attention.
Fang Shu calmly pocketed the tiger skin and fox head, then tucked the old fox’s body at his waist.
Because he suspected he had found “magic,” Fang Shu searched the cliff carefully again, digging three feet into the ground and examining bones meticulously, afraid to miss any opportunity.
In the end, he really found some hidden items.
Unfortunately, they were all vulgar objects, inconvenient to carry; only two or three taels of gold and two pigeon-egg-sized pearls caught his eye.
After confirming multiple times there was nothing missed, Fang Shu prepared to set off again.
“Immortal, immortal!”
At this time, louder whimpering arose on the cliff.
It was that pair of pig-dog man and woman; seeing Fang Shu about to leave, they struggled desperately and finally broke free of the hemp rope in their mouths.
The man and woman wailed incessantly:
“Immortal, save us! Immortal, discern clearly! This woman has never committed adultery with a dog, wronged, wronged!”
“This humble one is also wronged; please save me, immortal. This humble one is willing to follow the immortal to cultivate immortality.”
Fang Shu heard their words and paused his steps.
“Immortal, cultivate immortality?” He chuckled lightly, looking at the pig-dog man and woman, shaking his head:
“Read fewer storybooks; those are all dreamers talking nonsense.”
His words fell.
Ding-a-ling!
He turned and leaped, the copper bell at his waist jingling as he vaulted toward the misty cliff edge.
His body floated like a falling leaf, as if riding the wind on void steps, treading clouds away.
Leaving only that pair of pig-dog man and woman tied on the cliff, staring blankly at his disappearing back.
………………
“I too am a dreamer.”
Fang Shu nimbly darted through the mountains, lightly leaping to scale rocks and walls, climb peaks and ridges.
He did not go far, just over a few hilltops, when he spotted a cave midway up a cliff wall and immediately leaped up, entering the rock cave.
The reason he had just used the light body talisman was not to show off in front of people or laziness in descending the mountain, but to quickly find a safe shelter.
This rock cave before him was perfectly straight up and down, nearly a hundred zhang from either the cliff bottom or top, an ideal choice.
Entering the cave, Fang Shu first probed its depth, then cleaned it up, exterminating bugs and bats; only after confirming no issues did he sit cross-legged.
Just as he sat, he could not hold back, pulling out the tiger skin and carefully examining the writing on it.
At this look, his expression changed with great joy surfacing.
He saw that what was written on this tiger skin was none other than a magic technique named《Fur-Shedding and Skin-Changing Technique》
After fully comprehending it, the cultivator could peel monster skin or human skin to refine a skin pouch magic tool, then don the skin to transform and gain one or two abilities.
The old fox had not only completely copied this magic technique on the tiger skin but also transcribed numerous cultivation insights, seemingly using the tiger skin as a cultivation notebook.
But amid Fang Shu’s joy, a thick expression of regret soon appeared on his face.
Because upon checking, although the magic content on the tiger skin was mostly intact, especially the corresponding secret script characters with no omissions.
But this tiger skin itself had been corroded by the poisonous bees and poisoned wine, thoroughly ruined into a tattered rag.
Otherwise, he could have immediately donned this tiger skin after mastering the magic technique and transformed into a ferocious fierce tiger.
Such a skin-changing tiger would not dissolve in water like beast-creation techniques or illusion talisman paper, but remain unwashed by water, unbroken by fire, granting tiger strength to the body, even a bit of ghost illusion ability.
This was probably why the old fox could create illusory scenes in the mountains.
Unfortunately, the tiger skin was ruined; for Fang Shu to cultivate this magic technique now, he would have to find a superior monster skin himself and refine it anew.
Suddenly, his regretful gaze slowly shifted, finally landing on the old fox corpse, a smile appearing on his face.
This fox itself was not a perfect material for making skin?!
Fang Shu immediately untucked the fox corpse from his waist, feeling it up and down, tugging left and right to check the quality of the skin.
But suddenly, with a splat!
A plaque neither of gold nor wood dropped from the headless neck of the fox corpse…
