Chương 48: The Demon’s Raw Material (1/2)

A bountiful harvest.

Looking at the hovering transparent screen displaying a staggering reserve of 35, 775 Dao Embers, Shi Yan allowed himself a rare, fleeting smirk. The cold rain continued to cascade down around him, droplets striking the brim of his bamboo hat and rolling off in thin rivulets, yet for a single heartbeat, something almost resembling satisfaction flickered across his otherwise dead-eyed expression.

He shook the blood off his newly acquired silver-tasseled sword with a sharp flick of his wrist—the motion precise, economical, honed by years of military drill—sending a fine spray of crimson arcing through the rain-washed air before it spattered into the mud and puddles at his feet. The ornate silver tassel whipped through the motion, scattering droplets that caught the dim storm-light like scattered rubies.

Then he crouched beside the Senior Disciple's corpse, his boots squelching in the blood-thinned mud, and tore a strip of pristine white silk from the youth's ruined robes. The fabric came away with a muted ripping sound, rain-soaked fibers parting cleanly in his grip. He wrapped it quickly and tightly around his own heavily bleeding left forearm, the silk immediately darkening as it drank in the blood still seeping from the deep laceration.

But as the pressure of the tourniquet bit into his mangled flesh—fabric constricting around torn muscle and exposed nerve—the smirk faded into a cold frown. His pale eyes narrowed, rain streaming down his face in thin trails as he turned his gaze downward.

He looked down at his ruined left arm. The forearm hung at his side, trembling faintly—not from fear, but from the involuntary spasms of damaged muscle fibers fighting to maintain coherence. It had served as a brutalized meat shield twice in the last three minutes, and the toll was written in deep, ragged wounds that still throbbed with a vicious, bone-deep ache.

First, the demonic panther's massive jaws had crushed his forearm, leaving deep, ragged puncture wounds in his flesh—four punctures on top, three below, each one a dark crater rimmed with bruised, swollen tissue that had only barely begun to scab before the next disaster struck.

Then, the Senior Disciple's white-hot Qi blade had shattered his iron vambrace entirely, the black-iron fragments still glinting dully where they lay half-buried in the mud around him. The sword had sliced deeply through those already damaged, obsidian-like muscle fibers, carving a trench so deep he could see the pale glint of bone beneath the blood-slick meat.

Do I need to increase my physical attributes again to trigger the healing?

His jaw tightened, rain dripping steadily from his chin as the bitter realization settled over him like a shroud.

Just thinking of back then... it was only short-term.

Because he possessed a vessel entirely devoid of a Spiritual Root, he couldn't just sit in a lotus position and absorb ambient Heaven and Earth Qi to trigger some cultivation technique that knit his flesh together like any other cultivator. The very foundation of this world's power structure—the ability to draw upon the spiritual essence woven through the fabric of reality—was completely inaccessible to him.

Normal mortal healing was equally unviable; his cellular density was too robust. The Black-Iron Body Art had fundamentally altered his physique on a structural level, compressing and reinforcing his tissues to a degree that made conventional medicine laughably inadequate.

Perhaps a mortal physician's steel needle would snap trying to suture his skin, and waiting for a wound this deep to heal naturally would take half a year. The image flashed through his mind—some bewildered village healer watching his finest surgical needle shatter against skin that had been tempered to near-iron density.

And if he went to a cultivator physician?

His eyes furrowed, thin lines creasing at the corners as his frown deepened. They would notice he had no spiritual root, yet... possessed such injuries. The contradiction would be immediate, glaring, impossible to ignore. A rootless mortal should not survive encounters with Kindling-stage cultivators or demonic beasts. He could lie, spin some tale of fortunate elixirs or inherited constitution, but how many times?

How many physicians could he visit before word spread, before the whispers reached ears that should never hear them?

Thus, time was something he did not have.

Up until this exact moment, his only method of bodily repair had been leveling up—a brute-force solution that worked, but at what cost?

Spending [Dao Embers] to increase his [Physique] forcibly triggered an evolutionary reconstruction, wiping out his injuries in the process. It was effective. Reliable. But as the rain continued to drum against his shoulders and the cold seeped deeper into his bones, another realization crystallized in his mind with the clarity of ice forming over still water.

But that realization brought a creeping sense of tactical dread.

The cost of attributes scales exponentially, Shi Yan thought, his eyes darkening until they resembled chips of storm-grey flint. The numbers scrolled through his memory with perfect recall—each tier, each increment, each exponential leap in cost. Right now, it's still doable... but...

What happens when I hit the peak of Tier 3?

What happens when a single stat point requires fifty thousand, or half a million Embers?

The mental projection was stark, unforgiving. He could see the trajectory clearly—a graph climbing ever steeper until it became a vertical wall of impossibility.

If I endure catastrophic damage during a raid or an assassination, I'll be stranded.

I won't have enough bankroll to trigger an upgrade, meaning I will be forced to fight the next life-and-death engagement with shattered bones and severed tendons.

It was a fatal flaw in his operational logistics, a vulnerability that gnawed at the edges of his tactical planning like rust eating through steel. A soldier could not survive if his only medical kit cost the price of an entire battlefield. In his old life, he'd seen men die because supply lines were cut, because medevac couldn't reach them in time, because the resources simply weren't there when they were needed most.

This was the same principle, wrapped in a different skin.

But then—as if directly responding to the acute fluctuation in his physical vitals and his conscious focus on the wound—the blue holographic interface flickered into existence before his eyes, text materializing in sharp, luminous lines that cut through the rain-blurred air. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

[Vessel Status: COMPROMISED (Major Laceration & Radius Bone Trauma Detected)] [Sieve Drain: 83% Stamina Depleted. Excessive Lactic Acid Buildup.)] [System Directive: Emergency Vessel Triage Available.] Shi Yan blinked, rain clinging to his eyelashes as he stared at the screen. For a moment, he didn't move—didn't breathe—as the words registered fully in his consciousness.

[Repair to Base 55-Physique Cost: -450 Dao Embers] [Combustion Refuel Cost: -50 Dao Embers] [Total Deduction: -500 Dao Embers. Confirm?] Combustion? You mean stamina? Shi Yan stared at the floating text, his brow twitching slightly—the only outward sign of the sudden spike of incredulity lancing through his otherwise iron composure.

That meant he could just... be exhausted after a fight, the deep, grinding fatigue that came from pushing his body past every reasonable limit, and the next moment, be full of stamina? Muscles restored, lactic acid flushed, cardiovascular system reset to baseline efficiency?

But that was not the problem. The whole problem was...

Then why didn't you mention this earlier?!

The thought roared through his mind with the force of a howitzer blast, raw frustration bubbling up from somewhere deep in his chest. He wanted to ask, to demand an explanation, but with his mouth agape—rain trickling past his lips, cold and metallic—the words in his mind stopped. He sighed, a long, weary exhalation that misted faintly in the freezing air, and dragged a bloodstained hand down his face. His palm came away smeared with diluted crimson, rainwater and blood mixing in the creases of his palm.

This was not the first time the system had withheld crucial operational paradigms. Just like the leveling-up technique, which had only revealed itself when he'd stumbled onto the correct mental framework through sheer necessity and experimentation.

It was his error.

The System was not an interactive assistant or a chatbot; it was essentially a piece of biological hardware—a tool, not a teacher. It responded to queries and conditions, but it didn't hold his hand. It didn't anticipate his needs or offer unsolicited advice.

So my past actions... forcing a stat increase just to trigger the healing effect was fundamentally a massive waste of resources?

His lips twitched in genuine annoyance, a muscle jumping along his jaw as his teeth ground together briefly. The rain continued its relentless percussion against stone and flesh, indifferent to his frustration.

I overpaid for medical treatment.

But what was done was done. Complaining to a screen was utterly useless—as productive as cursing the rain for falling or the mud for clinging to his boots.

Yes. Execute triage, Shi Yan mentally commanded, his internal voice clipped and decisive.

[System Calculation Request: Confirmed.] [Total Deduction: -500 Dao Embers. Remaining Reserve: 35, 275 Dao Embers.] [Initiating emergency structural re-weave.] The reaction was instantaneous, and it was entirely devoid of the gentle, soothing warmth often described in books—the kind of healing that cultivation manuals waxed poetic about, where spiritual essence flowed like spring water through meridians, mending flesh with celestial grace.

This was nothing like that.

Shi Yan gritted his teeth, a low hiss escaping his lips as his left arm violently rippled beneath the silk tourniquet. Thick coils of white steam erupted from the laceration, hissing as they mixed with the freezing rain and rose in ghostly tendrils around his forearm. The scent of scorched blood and seared tissue filled his nostrils—sharp, acrid, unmistakable.

Dead, coagulated blood and necrotic tissue were physically pushed out of the wound by a rapid surge of hyper-pressurized cellular division, oozing out in dark clots that spattered onto the mud below with wet, organic sounds. The white silk binding darkened further, soaked through with expelled fluids.

Tendons snapped and twisted together like thick steel cables being drawn tight by a winch, each reconnection accompanied by a sharp, visceral pop that he felt more than heard. Beneath the skin, he could actually hear the sickening grind of his radius bone undergoing micro-welding—a low, grinding rasp like metal scraping against metal, resonating through the marrow and up into his shoulder socket.

The intense, localized agony felt like someone had poured molten lead directly onto his nervous system, white-hot pain lancing from his fingertips to his elbow and back again in rhythmic pulses. Yet his facial expression remained completely stoic, carved from the same rain-slick stone beneath his boots.

He merely breathed through his nose in a measured four-count rhythm—inhale, two, three, four; exhale, two, three, four—a technique drilled into him through years of enduring pain without breaking, until the hissing stopped and the steam dissipated into the storm-dark air.

Where the horrific gash had been, a thick, pale, jagged scar now remained—a raised line of fresh tissue that stood out starkly against his rain-washed skin, still faintly warm to the touch.

He blinked, rain clinging to his lashes, and looked down. Slowly, deliberately, he flexed his left hand. The fingers curled into a fist, knuckles whitening, then relaxed. He rotated his wrist, testing the joint through its full range of motion. The mobility was flawless—no stiffness, no grinding resistance, no phantom pain.

The structural integrity of a 55-Physique had been completely restored, every fiber and tendon returned to baseline functionality. And the heavy exhaustion weighing down his muscles—the deep, bone-deep fatigue that had threatened to drag him to his knees—had been entirely flushed out by the 'Combustion Refuel.' His breathing came easier now, his heartbeat steady and strong, the fog of lactic acid buildup completely cleared from his system.

Amazing... As usual, his lips remained devoid of any emotion, a flat line that might have been carved by a knife. Perhaps because he still remembered how much he had wasted on stat upgrades instead of simple... treatment. The number echoed mockingly in his mind—how many thousands of Embers had he burned through unnecessarily, purchasing attribute increases when a five-hundred-Ember triage would have sufficed?

Shaking his head, water droplets scattering from the brim of his bamboo hat, he shifted his attention to the dead bodies of the cultivators sprawled in the mud around him.

Right. This one too. He knelt in the mud with a wet squelch, the cold, viscous mixture of blood, rainwater, and filth soaking into the knees of his trousers, and began moving with care—methodical, practiced, efficient.

He stripped the finely embroidered spatial pouches off the dead Cloud Mirror Sect disciples, his fingers working quickly despite the slickness of blood and rain. Each pouch was crafted from high-quality silk in the sect's signature pale blue, stitched with silver thread in patterns that shimmered faintly even in the dim storm-light. The fabric was soft under his fingertips, luxurious in a way that spoke of wealth and privilege—things these disciples would never enjoy again.

He gathered their minor loose loot—spare jade slips tucked into inner pockets, their surfaces smooth and cool; stray silver taels that clinked softly as he pocketed them, the metal coins heavy and satisfying; and a few scattered medicinal pills in small porcelain vials, their contents rattling faintly as he secured them. But he took special care to unstrap the Senior Disciple's high-quality scabbard from the corpse's waist.

The leather was supple and well-oiled, dark brown with brass fittings that had been polished to a mirror shine. He ran his thumb along the length of it, appreciating the craftsmanship, before strapping it tightly to his own waist. The weight settled comfortably against his hip, balanced and reassuring.

He drew the silver-tasseled jian one last time—the blade gleaming wetly in the rain, blood washed clean by the downpour—then returned it to its proper housing with a soft, decisive click as the guard met the scabbard's mouth.

Holding the seven distinct spatial pouches in his palm, Shi Yan's brows furrowed, rainwater trickling down the bridge of his nose as he examined the haul with a critical eye.

Can I open them?

He ran his thumb over the heavy, bloodstained silk, feeling the faint thrum of residual spiritual energy still clinging to the fabric like static electricity. Cultivator pouches operated on Dantian marks and spiritual intent—biometric locks keyed to the owner's unique Qi signature. With the owners dead, their Dantians ruptured or destroyed, the active spiritual link was severed. But that didn't mean the pouches were simply unlocked. Quite the opposite.

Back in the village, he had successfully cracked Physician Li's encrypted Jade Slip by smearing it with the man's own volatile essence blood, temporarily tricking the Qi lock into accepting the host's biometric signature. The method had been crude but effective—a brute-force bypass that exploited the fact that essence blood retained a faint imprint of its owner's spiritual resonance even after death.

He briefly considered extracting blood from the severed head of a disciple nearby—perhaps slicing open the carotid and letting the residual essence blood pool in his palm—to attempt the same method.

But...

Negative, he shook his head, rejecting the idea with the firmness of a closed gate. Rain dripped from his chin, spattering onto the pouches cradled in his palm.

In his opinion, a Jade Slip is merely a data storage drive—a passive repository of information. The worst it will do is erase its text, wiping the stored knowledge clean if the security protocols detect tampering. Annoying, but not catastrophic.

A Spatial Pouch, however, was an entirely different beast. It was a localized dimension-folding array, a piece of reality warped and compressed into a pocket universe tethered to a silk container.

These were high-grade sect issue, their quality evident in the intricate stitching and the faint shimmer of formation arrays woven into the fabric itself. They unquestionably possessed passive anti-theft mechanisms—failsafes designed to protect valuable resources from falling into enemy hands.

If I attempt to force these open using dead blood, raw physical Might, or my Anomaly stat to bypass the lock, it might trigger a total spatial collapse, Shi Yan concluded, his tactical mind running through the possibilities with cold precision.

A collapsed pouch voids the interior dimensions. The delicate structure of the folded space would implode, and the loot could be crushed into atomic dust under the weight of collapsing dimensional layers, or worse, thrown into the chaotic void—that formless, roiling expanse between realities where matter simply ceased to exist in any meaningful way.

Which means...

I'll let the Chamber's appraisers unseal them in the city. Their cut is worth mitigating the risk.

Better to lose twenty percent to a middleman's fee than to lose everything to a catastrophic dimensional collapse. It was a calculated decision, the kind he'd made a thousand times before—prioritizing long-term gain over short-term curiosity.

He stashed the pouches securely into his tunic, tucking them into an inner pocket where they pressed against his ribs, their weight a tangible reminder of the night's bloody harvest.