by Dragon King
“Hehehe… The chance has finally come!” A shadow shot out of the Demon King.
This demon king looked like a vague shadow that was wearing a red robe, and the sharp horns on his head made him look like a small ghost.
Despite his insignificant look, he was a big demon king! Good at disguises, he had followed Hao Ren in the sea, and even Hua She, Ying Zhao, and the three-legged bird hadn’t noticed him!
“Go!” Hao Ren released all his nature essence, and the golden boat dashed forward quickly.
“Hehehe…” The demon king laughed while his big shadowy hands extended indefinitely like a dharma treasure toward Hao Ren.
Hurriedly, Hao Ren shot out 640 sword energies, but they went through his palms as if the hands were shadows!
A chilling sensation got close to Hao Ren! If the hands caught him, he wouldn’t be able to escape with his current realm!
This demon king had followed Hao Ren to the edge of the Demon Sea and launched the sneak attack after Duan Yao and the two big demon kings left.
“Realm-breaking note!”
Hao Ren took out three realm-breaking notes from his necklace and launched them all!
However, this demon king’s body wasn’t an illusion created by array formations, and Hao Ren’s dharma notes were useless on him. However, the dharma notes made him pause for half a second since he thought they were dharma notes that could suppress him!
Bang!
At this critical time, the golden shield shot out a golden light from above.
Mingled with the bright energy of the supreme spiritual treasure, the golden light shot onto the ghost-like demon king with power thousands of times greater than the Sun!
White smoke rose from the demon king’s shoulder, and Hao Ren flew over to the Immortal Spirit Island on the purple gold hairpin while he paused.
Crack!
Furious, the demon king shot out a black shadow, intending to kill Hao Ren instead of catching him alive!
The golden shield shot out golden lights from its edges, trying to block the black shadow.
However, the wide range of golden lights couldn’t block this black shadow!
Ding!
Suddenly, a transparent energy sphere that was engraved with all kinds of complicated patterns appeared.
The black shadow turned into traces of black smoke when it touched this energy sphere.
Frustrated, the big demon king tried to grab Hao Ren, but half of his body was cut off when he crashed onto the energy sphere!
The golden shield flew out of the energy sphere to Hao Ren’s side without meeting any obstacle.
With his red robe half burned, the big demon king stood on the other side of the Immortal Spirit Island and bared his chilling white teeth at Hao Ren.
The energy sphere returned to its invisible state, and the Immortal Spirit Island was surrounded by nothing but a vast ocean to the naked eye.
Hao Ren looked at the demon king and shot out a wave of sword energies which pierced the body of the demon king.
Looking furious, the demon king couldn’t rush over, and he vented his rage by tearing two demon beasts that were 1,000 meters away into pieces with his ghost hands.
Hao Ren checked himself and found that he got a scratch on his back close to his shoulder. If he hadn’t accelerated the purple gold hairpin, he probably would have been caught or killed.
One day, he would come back to avenge himself. Hao Ren shot another wave of sword energies toward the demon king before flying toward the distant land.
The demon kings in the Demon Sea were horrifyingly powerful. They were confined in the Demon Sea and fought with each other because a super powerful array formation engulfed the entire Demon Sea.
This array formation could block the small and big demon kings as well as level 9 and level 10 demon beasts.
The small demon kings outside of the Demon Sea had escaped when they were level 7 and 8 demon beasts and had passed the Heavenly Tribulations outside of the Demon Sea.
“What kind of big array formation could engulf the entire Demon Sea? The center of the array formation should be outside of the Demon Sea, right?” Hao Ren thought as he took out and ground a detox pill before putting it on the wound in his back. The elixir pills in his necklace had almost run out, but the round Penglai Immortal Token was still inside.
Hao Ren looked back at the vast ocean and thought of Duan Yao who now lived in the Demon Sea which was full of dangers.
When they meet again, they would be enemies.
Hao Ren shook his head slightly and accelerated the purple gold hairpin. At his current realm, he couldn’t venture into the Demon Sea again until he grew much stronger!
After he practiced the Mystic Water Sword Techniques to the top level, he would be able to battle with the big demon kings!
675 The Happy Little White…
When Hao Ren got home, Grandma and the girls were eating steaming dumplings in the living room.
“Grandma! I’m back!” Hao Ren called out.
“Bad boy! You went out early morning and came back at this late hour!” Grandma pointed at the kitchen with a long face. “Go and get yourself a bowl of dumplings!”
“Ok!” Hao Ren heaved a sigh of relief, thinking he was lucky that he could return. Otherwise, Grandma would never see her beloved grandson again.
“Why is there a tear in your clothes?” Seeing the tear in his shirt on the shoulder, Grandma looked concerned and asked.
“I slipped and fell; the road is too slippery,” Hao Ren said.
“You’re too careless!” Grandma walked over immediately and checked Hao Ren’s shoulder. She only relaxed when she saw no wound beneath the tear.
Zhao Yanzi and Xie Yujia looked at Hao Ren, wondering where he had been. If they knew Hao Ren had ventured into the center of the Demon Sea, they would be astonished.
“Where are my mom and dad?” Hao Ren asked.
“Your dad went out immediately after eating the dumplings. Your mom went to the meteorological station to see the data or something,” Grandma said.
With only the Lu sisters, Zhao Yanzi, and Xie Yujia keeping Grandma company, it was quieter than yesterday.
It began to drizzle, and Hao Ren saw a pale rainbow-like light outside of the small garden of the house. He thought it was the array formation built by Zhen Congming.
“Where’s Congming?” Hao Ren asked Grandma.
“Little Xue’s family returned from their trip, and they picked up Congming in the morning to take him to the amusement park,” Grandma said.
It seemed that Zhen Congming was doing well in his love life.
Hao Ren filled a bowl with dumplings, still feeling unsettled when he thought about his experience in the Demon Sea.
Rumble… Little White devoured the dumplings with meat filling from a china bowl at Hao Ren’s feet.
The lazy and food-loving Little White lived a comfortable life with Hao Ren on land. If it lived in the Demon Sea, it would have died hundreds of times with its weak strength.
“Ruff! Ruff!”
After devouring ten dumplings, Little White raised its head and barked at Grandma. It didn’t like the usual food but seemed to like the newly-made dumplings with meat filling.
“Little White’s appetite has grown!” Grandma moved the last six dumplings in her bowl into Little White’s pan.
“Bad dog!” Seeing Little White’s shameless look with its tongue sticking out, Hao Ren patted it on the head.
“I risked my life in the Demon Sea, and you stayed home enjoying the comforts,” he thought.
Little White looked at Hao Ren with innocent eyes as if it were saying, “What? Can’t I eat a bit more than usual?”
“Linlin, Lili, do you still have the rice paper and ink brush left from last time?” Hao Ren asked.
“We do! Gongzi!” Lu Linlin and Lu Lili jumped up and took out everything from the drawers below the TV.
“Hehe! Ren, have you begun practicing calligraphy?” Grandma
asked while helping the Lu sisters spread the rice paper.
“I’m doing it for fun…” Hao Ren said. Tomorrow would be the first activity hosted by the Calligraphy Club, and it would be a good chance for the dragon cultivators to bond with each other. However, he wondered if Xu Ke would come and make trouble.
Xie Yujia brought over a glass of water to soak the ink brush.
Lu Linlin and Lu Lili ground the ink for Hao Ren, and the black ink began to accumulate on the inkstone quickly.
“Grandma, you say the words, and I’ll write them,” Hao Ren said to Grandma.
“Well…” Grandma’s face wrinkled with a smile. “Then, I’ll say something simple. ‘The bright sun is setting behind the mountain; the yellow river is running into the ocean. If you want to see one thousand miles further, you need to climb one story higher.’ Ren, I want you to get better and better.”
Hao Ren remembered that this was the first Tang Dynasty poem which Grandma taught him. Having just fled from the Demon Sea full of demon beasts, he felt like his morale was boosted after hearing this poem.
The ink flowed from the tip of the ink brush, and the neatly styled characters appeared on the paper.
“Ren, your calligraphy is quite good!” Grandma said happily when she saw the characters.
“This is just a warm-up; I’ll do them properly in a minute.” With a smile, Hao Ren stared at the white rice paper, writing the characters on his mind. Then, focusing his attention on the ink brush, he wrote down the characters smoothly.
Hao Ren used the Mystic Water Sword Techniques when he was writing, and each of the 20 characters was elegant. As a whole, they looked grave.
[Hao Ren]
He signed his name, and the two characters were elegant. After the name, he wrote the date with ‘mid-autumn’ behind them.
Looking at the poem, Grandma was amazed. Ink brush writing was difficult since the pen was soft. However, Hao Ren’s wrist moved with such skill as if he had complete control of each ink drop on the Xuan paper.
The 20 characters were impressive.
“Excellent!” Staring at the paper for a few seconds, Grandma finally found her voice.
She was surprised that her grandson was so skilled in calligraphy.
“Gongzi, this is wonderful!” Lu Linlin and Lu Lili said immediately.
Studying the characters, Xie Yujia felt like each of them was perfect; neither too full nor too thin. She felt like the characters formed a picture together.
Zhao Yanzi looked at the rice paper and then at Hao Ren, wondering how Hao Ren could write such awesome calligraphies.
In fact, Hao Ren had used the Mystic Water Sword Techniques in his writing, in which each stroke of the characters contained sword spirits, full of ambitious aspirations.
The elegant sword spirits in the characters were obvious even to the people who didn’t understand calligraphy.
“Well…” Hao Ren exhaled. “I still have an errand to run. Linlin, Lili, frame the writings, and I’ll take it to school.”
“Ok, Gongzi!” Lu Linlin and Lu Lili puffed their pink cheeks and blew at the rice paper before rolling it up carefully. “We’ll frame it for you.”
“You’re going out again? You must spend some time with the girls,” Grandma complained when she saw that Hao Ren was about to leave.
Hao Ren smiled and said, “Tomorrow, the school has a club event. Grandma, come and visit with Mom and Dad.”
“Ok. Are you a member of the club, Ren?” Grandma asked.
“It’s the Calligraphy Club that I created, Grandma,” Hao Ren answered.
“Ren, you established a club! Is the club something like an interest group?” Grandma asked happily.
“Yeah, like that,” Hao Ren smiled. Since they were all going to school tomorrow, Grandma would be left at home alone. It would be better if she went to school and saw the event.
“An interest group. Then, there won’t be a lot of people. Good, I’ll take the opportunity to visit Little Su,” Grandma said. She had never been to Hao Ren’s school and missed Su Han as well.
Seeing Grandma in high spirit, Hao Ren gave a kick to Little White who had been hiding under the table.
Now that he had delivered the elixir pills to Penglai Island, he wanted to trade the contribution points for things in the Dragon God Shrine and get some rest.
After his narrow escape from the Demon Sea, he hoped that he could trade for some good stuff that would make his dangerous adventure worthwhile.
Little White rolled out from under the table and trotted to the door with Hao Ren.
Bang! After walking a few steps, Hao Ren created an array formation, and Little White changed into its snow lion form.
He thought it would be better not to use the purple gold hairpin to travel to the Dragon God Shrine. Besides, he wanted Little White to get some exercise since the latter was getting lazy.
After reaching level 4, Little White had grown bigger, and its speed was faster. Hao Ren hit its rump with a sword energy, urging it to fly faster.
“Wu…” Little White grumbled, sounding like its feeling got hurt.
“Don’t fake it! You’re a level 4 demon beast now, but you’re still so lazy! Here, I got you a gift.” Hao Ren bumped its head with a fist. Then, when it began to fly earnestly, he took out a red bead from his necklace.
The fist-sized bead looked like a crystal ball with dark red light and intense demonic essence!
It was the demonic core of a level 10 demon beast!
In the narrow escape from the Demon Sea, Hao Ren was not without any rewards. When the big demon kings fought with each other, they had killed many level 10 demons, and Hao Ren had collected several demonic cores that floated on the sea!
These were the demonic cores of level 10 demon beasts and thus were beneath the notice of the big demon kings. However, to ordinary cultivators, they were super precious materials!
Hao Ren felt pity that he didn’t have the chance to collect the demonic cores of the small demon kings who had died in the battles.
When that small demon king with the golden fan got killed by Hao Ren’s realm-breaking note and the lightning bolts, the demonic core had fallen into the sea. If Hao Ren had been quick, he could have picked it up with his sword energies. However, with another two small demon kings chasing after him, Hao Ren didn’t have the time to collect this demonic core, leaving this precious core to the level 10 demon beasts under the sea. Of course, they must have fought for it fiercely.
However, when the four big demon kings fought in the high sky, Hao Ren had taken the opportunity to collect six demonic cores!
A demonic core of a level 10 demon beast could sell for at least 100,000 spirit stones in the black markets on Fifth Heaven!
Hao Ren had collected six of them!
Due to his dangerous situation, Hao Ren had only picked up the demonic cores of the dead demon beasts near the golden boat. In fact, at least hundreds of level 10 demon beasts were killed!
When Little White saw this demonic core, its eyes lit up.
676 Selecting Treasures
The demon beasts’ cultivation method was unique since they could swallow the demonic cores of other demon beasts to strengthen themselves. However, some evil cultivators also improved their realms by swallowing others’ nascent soul while ordinary cultivators usually refined other cultivators’ nascent soul before using it.
For the demon beasts, swallowing demonic core was the most common way to increase their realm.
“Ruff… Ruff…” Little White played cute most of the time. Since it was still a demon beast, that was why it looked so eager when it saw the demonic core with intense demonic essence.
Xie Yujia had regularly fed it elixir pills, but Little White had to convert the nature essence into demonic essence, so its demonic essence growth was slow. However, this demonic core in Hao Ren’s hand contained a level 10 demon beast’s life-time demonic essence! Little White would become very powerful if it absorbed only one-third o
f the energy contained in the core!
The most precious thing in the demon beasts were the demonic cores that were containing demonic essence. Then, it was the demon souls that could improve the quality of dharma treasures. Lastly, it was the bones and skin which could be made into dharma treasures.
Hao Ren didn’t have the techniques and treasures to absorb demon souls, but he had collected six bead-shaped demonic cores.
If Little White hadn’t come out with Hao Ren, it would have been still rolling in the mud in the Lion Cave and probably could never reach level 2 in its lifetime.
“Be good, and this is yours,” Hao Ren said.
These demonic cores were not very useful to him. He could give them to Xie Yujia to make elixir pills, but she usually used spiritual herbs and probably didn’t dare to use the demonic cores from demon beasts.
He could also sell them on Fifth Heaven for lots of spirit stones, but they were meaningless to him. If he traded them for other stuff, there was nothing that he liked on Fifth Heaven and Sixth Heaven. Besides, he could trade for things with elixir pills in the name of Herb King Master of Ethereal Summit.
Seventh Heaven might have some good stuff, but Hao Ren didn’t want to deal with the more powerful sects there and thus wouldn’t reveal the level 10 demonic cores to them.
The demonic cores of level 10 demon beasts were tempting even to the sects on Seventh Heaven. After all, even Soul Formation Realm cultivators didn’t dare to venture into the Demon Sea, and there were no level 10 demon beasts outside of the Demon Sea. Even if there were, who could kill them?
“Ruff! Ruff… Little White swayed its body, and its long tail almost touched Hao Ren who was sitting on its back. It was impatient when it saw the big demonic core in Hao Ren’s hand but couldn’t reach it.
“I got it for you at the risk of my life. You must be obedient, ok?” Hao Ren lifted the demonic core and asked.
“Ruff!”
Little White knew what Hao Ren meant and nodded enthusiastically.
Hao Ren lowered the demonic core and placed it near Little White’s mouth.
Little White was a Bin-level demon beast with both ice-elemental and fire-elemental attributes. The demonic core must have belonged to a Jia-level demon beast since it had cultivated to level 10 in the Demon Sea.