Chapter Two: Ninth Grade of the Profound Realm

Ji Xun balanced a carrying pole across his shoulders as he walked from the fields toward a river on the edge of the village.

The Hundred Beasts Grass not only required the blood of beasts, but also needed to be watered. Watching the children fishing by the riverbank, Ji Xun took a demon coin from his pocket and bought some small fish and shrimp, prompting cheers of delight from the kids.

One demon coin could buy much more, but Ji Xun pitied these children and simply wanted to make them happy.

“Thanks, Big Brother Dali! Next time we catch a big fish, we’ll invite you to eat with us.”

“If only Big Brother Dali could be my brother-in-law.”

“Pah, with your sister’s shrewish temper, that’d be the worst payback ever.”

“Shut up, you!”

The children splashed and played in the river, laughter echoing.

Ji Xun merely smiled, filled two buckets with river water, and put the fish and shrimp inside. Once alone, he tried touching each creature; whether lively fish or dead shrimp, the demon-refining pot showed no reaction.

“It seems only special flesh and blood like that of the Hundred Beasts Bug will work,” he mused.

He watered the fields little by little, not yet planning to hunt for the Hundred Beasts Bugs lest it draw too much attention.

…

As dusk fell, Ji Xun, weary from a day’s labor, ate a few coarse wild grass cakes and boiled some of the small fish and shrimp. The cakes were bland, devoid of oil and barely filling, and the fish and shrimp tasted strongly of river, but it was the best he could manage.

After eating, Ji Xun lay on his bed to rest, intending to go out and hunt Hundred Beasts Bugs under cover of night.

Just then, a knock sounded at the door.

“Dali, are you home?”

“It’s Uncle Lin,” Ji Xun replied, rising to open the door to find Lin Xiaoyun and her father, Lin Changshan, standing outside.

“About today… sigh, I’m so grateful you saved Xiaoyun. As for the extra fifty percent, I’ll think of a way. Don’t worry.”

“Please, don’t mention it. You once saved my life—this is nothing in comparison.”

“Ah, that village head truly deserves his reputation as a skinflint. I worry he’ll…”

“Don’t worry, Uncle Lin. With no new slaves to replenish the ranks in winter, he won’t dare go too far.”

They chatted a while longer before Lin Changshan left with Lin Xiaoyun, insisting on leaving some wild boar meat behind. After three rounds of polite refusal, Ji Xun accepted and cooked the pork as a treat.

“I really miss the days when I could just order takeout,” he sighed.

…

Night blanketed the world in silence, broken only by the occasional chirp of insects or call of a night bird.

Ji Xun, gripping his newly bought machete, left his thatched hut and headed for the fields.

During the day, he’d made a discovery: the hand injured by the vine whip now attracted the Hundred Beasts Bugs from the fields—something that had never happened before.

If he could kill most of the bugs, the beasts’ grass would suffer less gnawing, and the yield would be much improved.

“It must be because I refined that trace of Hundred Beasts blood,” Ji Xun thought, unwrapping the tattered cloth from his wound.

He clenched his hand, letting blood drip slowly to the earth.

“Is this what they call fishing for trouble?” he mused.

Suddenly, a sound came from behind.

“Got one.”

Prepared, Ji Xun swung his blade in a single stroke, smashing the Hundred Beasts Bug against a stone, then hacked at its body until its innards were pulverized, though its tough hide remained intact.

The demon-refining pot absorbed the bug’s corpse, refining it into a thread of Hundred Beasts blood, which Ji Xun swallowed.

But unlike the previous time, his body now resisted—like a man who’d already eaten his fill, yet forced down another bowl of rice. The previous blood had not fully digested.

…

Two days passed in a flash.

By dusk, the field laborers gathered for a chat.

“Hey, barely any new bug bites on the beasts’ grass these past two days—strange, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, those damned Hundred Beasts Bugs, you could never catch them before. But now they’re really scarce.”

“With fewer bugs, the yield should be enough. My wife’s waiting on this month’s demon coins to buy winter supplies.”

Ji Xun sat quietly listening. In his past life, he’d been too busy to appreciate such peaceful, harmonious moments.

That night, he used the same method to kill another Hundred Beasts Bug and refined it into a blood thread.

With this latest addition, he’d amassed ten threads over the past two days.

At his will, the ten threads slowly merged into a single drop of blood—scarlet as a gemstone, flawless, but exuding the oppressive aura of a ferocious beast.

[Essence Blood of the Hundred Beasts: Unranked. Refined from the Hundred Beasts Bug. Drinking it strengthens the flesh.]

Previously, swallowing the blood thread by thread hadn’t made Ji Xun a cultivator; now, he decided to take a bold step.

Back in his hut, Ji Xun sat on his bed and swallowed the drop.

Soon, a burning sensation surged from his belly, transforming into heat that coursed through every channel in his body, finally gathering at his heart.

Thump-thump-thump—Ji Xun could hear his own heartbeat, his flesh pulsing in rhythm, his body steadily strengthening.

Vaguely, he sensed an intangible shackle within—one that, if broken, would allow him to step onto the first rung of cultivation: the Ninth Grade Profound Stage.

From village elders, he’d learned this shackle was called the Profound Lock.

Ji Xun closed his eyes, focusing on the steadily rising vigor within, and in a trance, he seemed to “see” the hundred beasts of the forest—hunting, playing, resting.

If anyone could peer at him now with a mystical gaze, they’d see his vitality at its peak, with threads of pure yang energy bursting from his pores, coalescing around him into the forms of a hundred beasts.

Tigers leapt, lions pounced, eagles screeched, cranes called, elephants stampeded, snakes slithered, horses galloped, deer bounded, fish dove, turtles crawled—strange visions rose from his body.

As Ji Xun’s body grew stronger, the beasts of yang energy returned within, and the Profound Lock—half-real, half-illusory—was gnawed apart by these beasts, shattered into countless fragments that fused into his flesh.

With faint cracking sounds, the Profound Lock broke, and Ji Xun entered the Ninth Grade Profound Stage.

He slowly opened his eyes, feeling an unprecedented freedom in both mind and body.

Long caged, now returned to nature.

Every muscle was under his command. Rising, he clenched his fists, feeling terrifying power coil in his arm—enough, he thought, to shatter stone or lift a tripod.

“Power returned to the self—so this is the strength of a cultivator? If I meet a Hundred Beasts Bug again, I could crush it with a single grasp.”

Ji Xun sat quietly, having just digested a full drop of essence blood, his spirit and energy complete, with no need for sleep.

The beast blood used to water the fields always contained traces of demon or savage beast blood—thus nourishing the Hundred Beasts Bugs.

But their bloodlines were chaotic, lacking potential, useless for alchemy or medicine.

Even demon beasts would lose their reason if they consumed it, so it was only good for feeding low-grade captive beasts.

Yet the demon-refining pot made all these problems vanish—impurities and broken wills were completely refined away.

As for so-called savage beasts, these were creatures whose bodies had reached great heights, but whose minds remained little different from wild animals, despised by true demons.

“I wonder… can the demon-refining pot refine a savage beast?” Ji Xun pondered, lying in bed.