In the illusion formation, the Illusion Fox lay on the ground, breathing weakly. It wasn’t dead, but this was its last body. The little tiger and Yiyi had killed the other two, making them vanish.
Tang Jie stood near the fiend fox, coldly observing it.
The fiend fox lay there, no longer resisting. It muttered, “I wanted to leave because I knew that this day would come eventually, when I wouldn’t be able to escape… Sure enough, I couldn’t escape. But I didn’t think that I would die at the hands of a cultivator that hadn’t even reached Mortal Shedding yet.”
“It might have been exactly the other way around,” Tang Jie replied. “It’s precisely because I wasn’t even at the Mortal Shedding Realm that you decided to use me to clear out Fragrant Store Cave and break your own wings. If my level were higher, would you do this? You would probably instead choose to attack en masse or else seize the chance to escape, right?”
The fiend fox froze, and then it softly said, “True, true. If you were some big cultivator, how would I fight with you to the death? It’s precisely because I thought your cultivation insufficient that I was defeated on this day! But if I weren’t so determined to leave, would I have made such a choice? In the end, I was the architect of my demise, and I must bear the results. It is all karma, karma! Haha! Haha!”
The fiend fox looked up and laughed.
“At least you don’t need to run anymore,” Tang Jie slowly said.
The fox suddenly stopped laughing. “Yes, I don’t need to run. After 28 times, I’m tired…”
It sighed and closed its eyes.
And so it died.
Tang Jie couldn’t help but emotionally sigh at the fiend fox’s death.
He had come to more and more understand why Xu Muyang had said that the Immortal path was callous. On this path, you either ate others or became food. There was no third choice.
Though he was rather emotional about all this, his hand moved without hesitation.
With a swing of his Heartbreak Saber, he cut open the fox’s belly, and from it, he extracted a small pellet.
This pellet was different from the ones before, round and crystalline. In its center was a little red dot that moved around, and in the sunlight, it sparkled with a rainbow of colors.
This was where the Illusion Fox’s Thousandform attribute was located. With the application of a secret art, this fiend pellet could become the avatar that Tang Jie wanted.
All of the effort and risk had been for this fiend pellet.
After solemnly putting the fiend pellet away, Tang Jie turned to the other items.
There was a little pouch under the fiend fox’s belly, which had appeared after the fox had died. It was the Mustard Seed Bag it had used before, and it contained all the spoils the fox had gathered over the years.
Although it had used many of the items in the battle, there was still a lot inside. Tang Jie looked inside and saw that it was primarily weapons and armor. There were few pills and talismans, probably because these were consumable items and had mostly been used up. Only things like spell weapons and art relics could be preserved. Alas, their grades were mediocre, and they weren’t worth much money at all. But they did make up for this in quantity, with there being several dozen of them.
Tang Jie made some rough calculations and found that these spell weapons and art relics were worth at least seventy thousand coins.
Besides that, there were numerous fiend beasts littering the landscape.
This battle had resulted in the deaths of the hundreds of fiend beasts of Fragrant Store Cave, including six Mind Opening fiends and a hundred-some Spirit Sensing fiends. Their corpses were a different kind of bountiful harvest.
Yiyi and the little tiger swept through and turned up thirty-some fiend pellets alone, as well as various furs, hides, bones, scales, and other such materials. The Mind Opening fiends also offered their own treasures. The soul refining of the lynx and red eagle had even affected their fiend pellets, so these were worth the least. As for the most valuable, this was actually the black bull. The bull’s fiend pellet was worthless, just an empty shell; its bezoar was the real treasure. It was a material that could be used to create high-level curatives and antidotes. These fiend corpses put together were worth thirty to forty thousand coins.
Tang Jie took it all without courtesy, not showing the slightest intention of sharing. On the western slope, Luo Yin was still weeping in front of four graves.
It wasn’t that Tang Jie was being petty. While this had been a bountiful victory, Tang Jie had also paid out a lot for it.
Not even mentioning the fiend-sealing talisman, the Devil Crushing Fist alone had come with a grievous price.
This was his first time using the Devil Crushing Fist for real, so he hadn’t been sure about his power. Thus, that one punch had unleashed 30% of his power. He had overdone it.
30% power didn’t sound like a lot, but it was the result of years of cultivation.
From the time he had started cultivating the Parting Classic, Tang Jie had invested about 120,000 to 130,000 spirit coins into his body cultivation.
The 30% strength in his Devil Crushing Fist was essentially nearly 40,000 spirit coins!
Like he had blasted to bits several dozen bottles of cultivation medicine!
Like he had blasted apart a complete Grade 3 combat puppet!
This punch had also brought Tang Jie down from the middle tier of the Jewel Body to the basic tier.
Thus, without considering the contents of the Mustard Seed Bag and the fiend corpses and only looking at what he had gotten from the fiend fox, this victory of the weak against the strong had resulted in the winner paying a bitter price!
Tang Jie had actually been rather lucky. The Illusion Fox was one of the rare fiends that could use cultivator equipment without limitation at only the Mind Opening level, so it had kept the majority of its spoils. Other fiends would have been less generous, keeping a few and throwing away most of it.
This was the case for the lion and bull. Most fiends had no equipment, with even the golden lion having only that mace.
Of course, if he really had to exploit everything he could, the possessions of Qin Zhou and the other Green Hill disciples could have been considered to have “dropped”. Alas, “regrettably”, the Green Hill Sect group had not been exterminated, so Luo Yin was the rightful heir. Tang Jie considered himself a rather shameless and blackhearted soul, but he wasn’t so shameless and greedy as to seek the possessions of the Green Hill disciples after already getting so much. Thus, he had left Luo Yin to handle their things.
An additional benefit was that the little tiger and Yiyi had both advanced.
They had both already been close to the upper grade.
The battle had provided the little tiger with many fiend corpses, and the several Mind Opening fiend corpses alone were a huge boost. Thus, after eating the golden lion, the little tiger had naturally advanced to the next grade. As for Yiyi, Tang Jie gave her a few fiend pellets, after which she easily advanced.
After sweeping the battlefield, Tang Jie took a trip to Fragrant Store Cave.
There were still a few minor fiends watching the house inside the cave, and Tang Jie easily took care of them. Alas, there wasn’t anything very valuable in the cave, though there was a lot of gold and silver useful to mortals.
Considering that these mortal treasures could still be exchanged for spirit coins, Tang Jie decided to take it all, playing the role of the classic looter.
When he came out of the cave, Tang Jie saw that Luo Yin was still weeping in front of the graves.
For this girl, today was probably the most painful experience of her life, but Tang Jie was sure that if she continued along the path of cultivation, she would have to face incidents that would be even more tragic.
After some thought, Tang Jie went up behind her and said, “The dead are gone, but the survivors must keep living. When you step on the path of Immortality, you have to be ready to encounter such calamity and view things more open-mindedly.”
The crying stopped, and Luo Yin turned her head and said, “Big Brother Tang, thank you for the advice. Luo Yin understands.”
Tang Jie was slightly taken aback. He had been so focused on dealing with the fiend fox and gathering the spoils that he hadn’t paid too much attention to Luo Yin before this. It was only now that he realized that the right half of Luo Yin’s face had a massive and terrifying burn. It covered such a large area that it basically occupied half of her face, even extending down past her neck, and there was no telling how much farther it went…
The white fox phantom’s searing flames had destroyed this girl’s face.
“Your face…” he blurted out, not knowing what to say.
Luo Yin smiled, her smile pulling on the scar and making it indescribably savage and frightening. She felt her face and replied, “Big Brother Tang, there’s no need to be so surprised. As Big Brother Tang said, to step onto the Immortal path, one must be prepared for calamity. It is already very fortunate that I was able to keep my life, so why should I be worried about a mere face?”
“A mere face”?
A face was a woman’s second life, perhaps even more important than her actual life!
Luo Yin was a little girl with a soft appearance, and while she hadn’t had some impressive figure, she was as cute as a sprite. For such a cute girl to have her face destroyed was something that not even Tang Jie could accept.
Tang Jie swallowed with some difficulty and sternly said, “The Green Hill Sect is skilled at producing medicines. Are there any that can heal scars and regrow skin?”
Luo Yin shook her head. “This was caused by Fiend Fire, so ordinary medicines are no good. While my Green Hill Sect is skilled at producing medicines, it is mostly for charging at cultivation thresholds. Its understanding of herbs that can heal scars is less profound.”
“If that’s the case, then I’ll help you go to the Seven Absolutions Sect,” Tang Jie immediately said. “I remember that they have a pill called the Naturalife Pill that can regrow the skin to divine effect. Paired with some other medicines, it can restore your face.”
“The Naturalife Pill is a Grade 3 secret medicine that is not easy to refine. The Seven Absolutions Sect does not lightly sell them to outsiders. Big Brother Tang…”
Tang Jie raised his hand and stopped her. “I’ll take care of that. Whether they sell it or not, so long as they have it, I’ll help you get your hands on one.”
He spoke with such resolve and attitude that it was clear that he didn’t care about the Seven Absolutions Sect’s status as a major sect. Luo Yin was surprised for a while, and then she finally said, “Big Brother Tang is a Basking Moon student?”
Tang Jie had only said that he was a Sageheart student, not that he was from the Basking Moon Sect.
But at this point, even if he didn’t say anything, Luo Yin could tell. Who except Basking Moon Academy had a curriculum that could create such a powerful student? And who except a Basking Moon student could be certain that they could get Luo Yin a Naturalife Pill?
Tang Jie nodded. “But this trip is a secret that no one can know about. I hope that you can help me keep this secret and say that you’ve never met me. Moreover, I hope that you will keep it a secret that I killed the Illusion Fox.”
“So I’m guessing that ‘Tang Xuan’ is not Big Brother Tang’s real name?” Luo Yin suddenly said.
She was originally an innocent and naive young girl with a lively personality, but after this incident, she had become much more composed, and even her intelligence had risen to a new level.
Tang Jie froze, and then he smiled and said, “Yes… My name is Tang Jie.”
“Tang Jie…” Luo Yin muttered this name, but it was clear that she had never heard it before. Ultimately, she shook her head and said, “‘Tang Xuan’ still sounds better.”
She looked at Tang Jie and said, “Whether it’s Tang Jie or Tang Xuan, I don’t know anyone like that. I just came here with Big Brother Qin and the others to pick herbs, but we were chased down by the fiend fox. Outmatched, we fled for our lives, but I was the only one who managed to escape. As for whether the fiend fox lived or died, whether Fragrant Store Cave was destroyed or survived, I have no idea. Perhaps some person came later and killed the fiend, but it has nothing to do with me.”
Tang Jie nodded. “Thank you.”
He grabbed a bundle of Whiteroots and placed them in Luo Yin’s hands. “I found these while searching Fragrant Store Cave. Take them.”
As she took the Whiteroots, Luo Yin thought about how coming here for these things had resulted in Qin Zhou and the other three all losing their lives, and her own face being destroyed. Sorrow welled up in her heart, and she could no longer maintain her composure and began to wail.
As she wailed, Tang Jie didn’t know what to say.
Yiyi crawled onto Tang Jie’s shoulder and whispered, “Big Brother, it’s so sad what’s happened to Big Sister Luo Yin. Can’t we do anything for her?”
Tang Jie shook his head. He had already promised to get Luo Yin a Naturalife Pill. What more could he do?
Tang Jie replied, “The Immortal path is callous and not a game. Don’t worry. She’s only recently experienced the cruel side of cultivation and hasn’t adapted to it yet. She’ll get better as time passes.”
“‘She’ll get better as time passes’?”
“Yes. Once enough time passes, she’ll naturally adapt to it, grow used to it… grow numb to it,” Tang Jie replied.
“And if she can’t adapt?”
“Then she’ll be eliminated.”
