Once the smoke of battle had dissipated, in less than ten breaths the Blood Pills on the ground were completely snatched away by the Immortal Craft Puppets.
Lin Youliang hid in the shadows and watched the scene before him with cold eyes.
“Ants are still just ants in the end. They smash their heads open fighting over a mere fly’s-head of profit.”
“The rules only said that the more Blood Pills you obtain, the more point rewards you receive, but they never restricted the methods of obtaining those Blood Pills.”
“Right now I estimate that ninety-nine percent of people would never imagine I have entrusted my Nascent Soul to this mechanical body. It is almost the same as my true body going into battle, and I possess Nascent Soul combat strength.”
A sinister smile pulled at the corners of Lin Youliang’s mouth as his gaze locked onto the Immortal Craft Puppet that had seized the most Blood Pills moments earlier.
“Hunting Blood Beasts is only the lowest-level game. Killing people and seizing treasure is the proper path!”
In the very next instant the Immortal Craft Puppet Lin Youliang had marked was blasted apart into a pile of fragments.
“Haha, thirty-one Blood Pills in total. Converted according to the quality of this batch, that is a full four hundred ninety points.”
Lin Youliang’s points had originally stood at eighteen thousand seven hundred, ranking him twenty-sixth.
Now, with more than nineteen thousand points in hand, his ranking jumped straight to twenty-second.
Lin Youliang felt secretly pleased, yet at that moment his eyes suddenly sharpened and fixed tightly on a black-haired young girl not far away whose height was no more than four chi.
The black-haired girl flashed through the pack of Blood Beasts at extreme speed. She held two steel knives as long as she was tall, and Blood Beasts toppled wherever she passed.
“This girl is rather strange. Her aura is only that of a mortal, yet her skill is so formidable.”
Curiosity rose in Lin Youliang’s heart, so he concealed his traces and quietly followed, only to be shocked to discover that his own speed could not keep up with this “mortal girl.”
“This mechanical body of mine was forged by the finest mechanical-dao cultivator in my clan and used a great quantity of Nascent Soul treasure materials. It is both hard and flexible. Even without spell reinforcement it is extremely agile!”
“This little girl is definitely not a mortal but a cultivator, her cultivation at least peak Foundation Establishment or even Golden Core! And she is extremely skilled at concealing her aura!”
A cultivator’s appearance does not necessarily reflect age. Plenty of people have lived more than a thousand years yet still look only eleven or twelve.
Hua Sang, for example, is clearly a thousand-year-old crone, yet she looks like a sixteen-year-old young girl.
After chasing a while longer Lin Youliang saw he had been completely left behind and wisely chose not to continue.
“In just this short time my ranking has already dropped to twenty-fourth. I cannot waste any more time!”
***
He Shu’s blades rose and fell, striking left and right, and three Blood Beasts collapsed to the ground.
After gathering the Blood Pills she leapt onto a high branch of a large tree, drove her long knives into the trunk, and sat down to rest.
Hu-ha—
After fighting continuously for the time of one incense stick the effects of the Qi-Blood Pills were gradually fading.
In He Shu’s body that meant her limbs had gone soft and her entire frame felt powerless.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead and muttered to herself, “Finally shook off that stalker. Ai— True Essence is only a little over forty percent left.”
The black-haired girl Lin Youliang had been tracking was precisely He Shu.
Once she realized she was being followed she had expended quite a bit of True Essence to increase her speed.
Lin Youliang had relied solely on the innate performance of the Immortal Craft Puppet the entire time.
How could he possibly match He Shu once she used movement arts?
That he had lasted so long before being shaken off was proof enough of the mechanical-dao attainments of the puppet’s creator.
The tree He Shu had chosen was extremely tall, more than ten zhang from the ground, almost the height of an ordinary pavilion.
Given He Shu’s small frame, even lying down on the branch to sleep would have been no problem.
He Shu sat cross-legged on the branch, took some instant dry rations from her storage bag, and ate with obvious enjoyment.
“I have to admit, although this Taiwu Flower pie does not look like much, the flavor is actually quite good.”
Taiwu Flower is a signature plant of Spirit Butterfly Valley.
It resembles a rose and gives off a faint, secluded glow at night.
Eaten raw it is cloyingly sweet, yet when used as a filling for pies it turns out unexpectedly delicious, with a faint lingering sweetness on the tongue.
He Shu savored the Taiwu Flower pie in her hand, eyes slightly narrowed in an expression of enjoyment.
One was not enough.
Just as she pulled a second Taiwu Flower pie from her storage bag the pastry in her hand vanished without a trace.
She turned her head in the direction it had disappeared and saw Bai Liuli suddenly appear, holding the very pie He Shu had just taken out.
“What do you think you’re doing!”
The anger on He Shu’s small face was completely unconcealed, yet in Bai Liuli’s eyes it actually looked a little cute.
Bai Liuli stuffed the pie into her mouth in two or three bites, cheeks puffed out, speech muffled.
“Saw you eating… chew chew chew… so fragrantly, just… wanted… chew chew chew… to taste it.”
“Didn’t expect, chew chew chew… it’s really quite tasty.”
After swallowing everything she had been chewing, Bai Liuli took out a handkerchief and wiped the crumbs from the corners of her mouth.
“Hehe, I don’t usually see you acting so reserved.”
He Shu rolled her dead-fish eyes at Bai Liuli’s deliberately prim appearance, her face full of distaste.
Bai Liuli took in every bit of He Shu’s reaction. She hummed twice, bent down, leaned close to He Shu’s ear, and whispered in a tingling, numb tone.
“Hmph hmph, little sister~ Slandering big sister comes with a price~”
He Shu’s expression grew even more disgusted and she shifted her body away from Bai Liuli.
Yee~
“Forget it, forget it. I’m not a petty person either,” He Shu waved a hand and steered the conversation to the point.
“Idle people do not visit the Hall of the Three Treasures. Speak. Did you discover something strange?”
Bai Liuli nodded and sat down cross-legged as well.
“Mm, there is indeed something I need to tell you. Both Shen Qingci and I noticed that this grotto-heaven world suddenly produced a large number of Immortal Craft Puppets.”
“Most of those Immortal Craft Puppets are hunting Blood Beasts, but a small portion are attacking their own kind.”
“There are no fewer than ten thousand of them. They should be the reinforcements of the Grief Valley City Lord. As for the ones attacking their fellows, they have probably been taken over by Hen Xiu.”
He Shu had glimpsed a few Immortal Craft Puppets now and then while fighting the Blood Beasts, but she had not paid them much mind.
After all, Grief Valley Immortal City had mechanical cultivators of its own.
After listening to the intelligence Bai Liuli shared, He Shu’s heart sank.
“A large number of Immortal Craft Puppets appearing all at once cannot be the work of a single person. I am afraid Hua Yanyun’s people from the outside have already arrived.”
“What a bother…”