Qian Ye still harbored another puzzle. He could not sense the slightest fluctuation of primal force from that maiden. Either she had not cultivated any primal force, or she was so powerful that Qian Ye could not feel her primal force at all.
The latter was obviously impossible. Even someone as skilled as Wang Bo found it hard to conceal his primal force. How could a young maiden possess such overwhelming power?
And if it were the former, it was also incredibly strange. The true noble families of the Empire would never lack resources. Any glimmer of talent among their descendants would be thoroughly unearthed. It was said that some families even possessed almost heaven-defying secrets. Even without the gift of primal force, they could nurture extraordinary talents by pouring in sufficient resources.
This maiden clearly had some talent, making her lack of primal force exceedingly odd. There must be a hidden reason behind this.
Additionally, Qian Ye faintly sensed a familiar scent from the maiden.
Qian Ye suddenly laughed at himself. What did it matter how the maiden was? Even if she encountered some difficulties, and her massive family power couldn’t solve them, what could he, a lowly blood slave struggling for survival amid trash and beasts, do to help her?
A single bag of reward money thrown out by one of the maiden’s servants was enough for him to live several lifetimes in the wilderness. Moreover, the residual power was enough to suppress the unruly expeditionary army, making them not only refrain from robbing but also further show their goodwill towards him.
But all of this was meaningless. Soon, the dark blood within him might erupt completely, turning him into a corpse in the garbage dump, becoming dinner for scavengers and wild dogs.
Qian Ye resealed the crystal box, blocking the primal force aura of the Demon-Breaking Mithril bullets. If the three extremely precious Demon-Breaking Mithril bullets were left exposed, the primal force contained within would continuously dissipate, and within a few days, they would become ordinary mithril bullets. Therefore, completed primal force projectiles needed to be stored in special containers.
This crystal box was a top-tier container, capable of isolating nearly all the escaping primal force. Primal force projectiles stored inside could last for a year! Just this crystal box alone was worth hundreds of Imperial gold coins. The original force bullet boxes previously distributed by the Red Scorpion Corps could only preserve the primal force bullets for a month, during which the power of the primal force bullets would continually decrease.
Primal force projectiles were all infused with primal force by at least third-level cultivators and required primal force guns to be fired. However, because infusing primal force bullets significantly slowed down cultivation progress and was difficult to preserve, regular Red Scorpion soldiers typically only started infusing primal force bullets before battles. Such ammunition was almost non-existent on the market.
Qian Ye put the Demon-Breaking Mithril bullets back into the black silk bag and returned them to the shelf. Due to the dark blood in his body, he instinctively wanted to stay away from these three silver bullets. As the weakness brought by the nightmare gradually subsided, his senses became sharp again, and he heard some strange sounds from the neighboring room.
Those were the sounds of a man and a woman together, mixed with the creaking groans of a bed frame. The neighboring room was where Manjusha stayed. Hearing the sounds, Qian Ye knew that the large iron bed welded together could collapse at any moment from the intense movements.
The woman was screaming hysterically, and the man was probably that one-eyed hulk, apparently trying to get his money’s worth. In the other room, there were some faint rustlings, the sound of someone tossing and turning, accompanied by some soft, ambiguous moans.
In that room was Min’er, alone and doing something.
Qian Ye pretended not to hear and looked around for something else to do.
But after a while, loud banging came from Min’er’s room. She was angrily hitting the wall of Qian Ye’s bedroom. After a while, with no response, she perhaps got tired and quieted down.
Though the night was still deep, Qian Ye could not sleep. He composed himself, sat on the bed, and gradually sank into his body, beginning to cultivate the “Bing Fa Jue.”
At this moment, under Qian Ye’s consciousness, the primal force within his body surged like a tide, crashing against the primal force node in his right hand. These forces within his body were sharply defined, and each surge brought Qian Ye a tearing pain.
After enduring twenty rounds of the primal force tidal waves, Qian Ye slowly gathered the primal force, guiding it back to the nodes in his chest and abdomen. After completing the cultivation, Qian Ye collapsed onto the bed, regaining a bit of his vitality after a long time.
Qian Ye struggled to get off the bed, every inch of muscle and meridian in his body burning in pain. He checked the clock; he had been cultivating for three hours, and it was already three in the morning. The sounds of physical activities continued from the neighboring room. It seemed the one-eyed hulk was determined to get his money’s worth, though it was unclear which woman was the unlucky one.
After finishing the Bing Fa Jue, the sounds of the neighboring couple’s pleasures no longer affected Qian Ye. He took off his sweat-soaked clothes, wet a towel with cold water, and wiped his body.
Qian Ye had grown a few more centimeters. Though he appeared lean when wearing a coat, removing his clothes revealed a body of evenly proportioned, powerful muscles, the lines as hard as steel wire, with not a shred of fat. The scar on his chest was nearly half a meter long, like a giant centipede coiling there.
After igniting the sea node, Qian Ye discovered that the primal force cultivated here was exceptionally violent and difficult to control. If Qian Ye’s current primal force was a sharp battle knife, then compared to it, the primal force of other warriors was dull.
The special primal force made Qian Ye’s combat techniques exceptionally powerful, but the corresponding pain and damage to the body during cultivation were much more intense. While the Bing Fa Jue could be cultivated up to the ninth level, given Qian Ye’s current situation, he might explode at the sixth level.
Qian Ye caressed the upper arm of his left hand. There was a scar there, palm-sized and square-shaped. This was a burn scar he gave himself because there was once a tattoo in that spot: a scorpion with a crimson tail, the emblem of the Red Scorpion Corps.
The Empire had tens of millions of troops, and the Red Scorpions, even fully staffed, numbered only ten thousand. Although Qian Ye squeezed into the Red Scorpions with the lowest standard, to outsiders, he was just a lucky boy. However, due to the injury on his chest, the primal force he cultivated was much more violent than the normal Bing Fa Jue. The pain and impact he endured in the fourteenth round of the primal force tide was equivalent to the twentieth round for other warriors.
In the Red Scorpions and other elite corps, there was a title called “Soldier King.” Only those who could endure thirty rounds of the primal force tide could earn this title. Throughout the entire Imperial army, sometimes a whole year would pass without a new Soldier King. Traditionally, only Soldier Kings could hold the positions of the commander and deputy commander of the Red Scorpions.
Qian Ye had wondered if his primal force was not so violent, would he have a chance to become a Soldier King?
Unfortunately, “if” remains “if,” and it would never turn into reality. The Imperial army was strictly hierarchical, perhaps cruel but fair. They only cared about results, not the process. Thirty rounds were thirty rounds, not a single round less. Whether the primal force was as violent as fire or as gentle as water, one had to endure thirty rounds of the primal force tide to be called a Soldier King.
In the darkness, Qian Ye suddenly sighed deeply. All of this was in the past. The Red Scorpions had become history. Just like the burnt tattoo, all the glory, power, status, and comrades of the Red Scorpions were buried. In his heart, only a scar remained.
After that fateful night, Qian Ye knew he could no longer live a normal life.
Perhaps the only thing he still cared about was Lin Xitan’s fate, but the lower continent was an entirely different world from the middle and upper continents, and he could receive no news. Occasionally, Qian Ye could only comfort himself, thinking that if something major happened to someone like General Lin, it would eventually reach even this remote place. So, no news was the best news.
Upon arriving on the Eternal Night Continent, Qian Ye wandered aimlessly until he entered the Lighthouse Town. For some inexplicable reason, he liked it here and decided to settle down, using the few silver coins in his pocket to open the Manjusha Bar.
The town’s natives were both cunning and simple. They quickly accepted Qian Ye’s presence because the liquor he brewed was indeed good.
As long as the taste of the liquor remained unchanged, no one cared about his identity, even if he was a genuine vampire, people would turn a blind eye.
Qian Ye walked to the wall, where a polished steel plate served as a mirror.
The person in the mirror was somewhat unfamiliar to him. Over the past year, Qian Ye’s skin had gradually become pale, and his face had changed. His eyes and facial features became more refined and gentle. Although his strength continued to increase significantly, the exaggeratedly strong muscles had receded, becoming as thin and resilient as elemental alloy wires.
Just then, there was a sudden pounding on the walls outside, followed by the loud voice of the bald police chief echoing through the door: “Qian Ye, come and help me fix the town gate! And you, One-Eye! I know you’re in there! Hope you haven’t been drained dry and can still carry the steel pipes!”
From the neighboring room came the reluctant voice of One-Eye: “I’m not done yet!”
“If you don’t come out, I’ll blow your balls off!” The threat from the bald police chief was always direct and effective.
Qian Ye quickly put on his clothes and went to the main hall, looking at where the bar’s door used to be. There was nothing left, not even the door frame. But putting up an iron door was much easier than repairing the mechanically driven town gate.
One-Eye also grumbled as he emerged from the long corridor. He was shirtless, with dozens of scratch marks on his chest and back, some deep enough to draw blood!
Seeing the blood droplets on One-Eye’s body, Qian Ye’s throat suddenly constricted, a sudden intense thirst nearly making him groan.
“What’s wrong, Qian Ye?” One-Eye asked, puzzled.
Qian Ye forced a smile and said, “Nothing, just a little envious.”
One-Eye chuckled, slightly embarrassed, and rubbed his head, saying, “If you want, Min’er won’t charge you. I really don’t understand why you keep refusing her.”
“I have no money to give her,” Qian Ye said, as if he hadn’t heard One-Eye.
“You should try, she really won’t charge you!”
The bald police chief interrupted them: “Less talk, hurry up and help! I don’t want us to be living in a town without a gate when the Dark Season starts. Fix the gate, and you two lucky guys won’t have to pay taxes this month.”
The chief’s surname was Zhang, and he always kept his shiny bald head. His huge belly could hold a calf. He managed to hold the position of police chief in the Lighthouse Town mainly because of his fair handling of affairs and his first-level warrior strength, as well as his powerful shotgun.
One-Eye and Qian Ye followed the chief to the warehouse. Shortly, the two of them carried a bundle of steel pipes to the town gate. By then, the chief had cleared the debris, and with a call, the three of them arrived at the blown-down town gate.
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