One more catty, one more attribute point

Whoosh!

In the underground palace beneath the earthen fort, large chunks of rubble and dust fell from the ceiling.

The hazy moonlight streamed through the entrance, and a shadow suddenly appeared.

Su Heng gracefully landed on the ground.

Feeling a chill on his skin, he realized that his clothes had been completely shattered and digested during the recent fight.

Fortunately, not far ahead was the corpse of an elder.

It's unclear whether it was due to the cultivation technique practiced by the Luo Family or a genetic issue within the family.

Most of the elders were somewhat obese.

The corpse in front of him was over one meter ninety tall and weighed nearly 300 kilograms, lying on the ground like a mountain of flesh.

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The fatal injury came from above the head.

The entire crown of the skull was missing, the brain completely gone, leaving only two eyeballs dangling in the empty cranial cavity.

Su Heng stripped off the white robe with gold trim from the elder's body and put it on himself.

It wasn't a perfect fit.

His thick thighs were exposed, and though he was barefoot, it was enough to cover his body.

Buttoning up the robe, Su Heng ignored these minor details.

He tidied up his disheveled long hair, grasped the hilt of his Ghost Conquering Sword, took two steps forward, and entered into the palace, surveying his surroundings.

The place was pitch black, but he could sense its vast expanse.

The air was thick with the scent of blood.

And there were subtle differences: one fresh, the other decayed, indicating that a large number of people had died here at two different times.

Continuing forward

A pillar inscribed with dragon patterns appeared in front of Su Heng.

He reached out and touched the protruding candle holder on the pillar.

Puff!

Su Heng flicked his finger.

A red chi force ignited the candle holders in succession.

Bunches of flames lit up, dispelling the darkness and revealing the entirety of the palace before Su Heng.

In the center of the palace was a massive blood pool. The pool looked as if it had been bombed by a rocket, completely shattered with only half of its structure left intact. Surrounding it were radial chunks of flesh and various pieces of internal organs. What drew the eye most, however, was a blood-soaked head.

The head was as big as a grinding stone.

Swollen with a blackish hue, its eyes wide open in death, the face frozen in an expression of agonizing scream.

Bang!

Su Heng kicked the head away.

He walked over to the side of the blood pool, looked around, and slowly pieced together the recent events that had occurred here.

"Taotie... seal..."

"That elder from the Luo Family wasn't completely lying to me."

"So, the demon I just encountered was the Taotie, one of the four fiends from the legends?"

"Hmm... he seemed a bit weak."

"No, that's not it, the Taotie had just broken free and probably hadn't recovered to its full strength. Besides, its divine skills were indeed strange. I was very cautious when I entered the temple, yet I was still swallowed whole. If it hadn't been for my tough constitution and timely realization of the trap, the outcome would've been difficult to predict."

"Huh..." Su Heng frowned slightly and pondered.

If he had encountered the Taotie in its prime, it might not have been so easy to deal with.

Of course...

Su Heng wasn't afraid of the Taotie seeking him out again.

On the contrary, he was somewhat looking forward to the creature coming back for revenge.

No matter how quickly the Taotie regained its strength, it couldn't possibly outpace his own rapid improvement. The next time they met, he would not let it escape from his grasp.

This was the confidence gifted to him by his talent and effort.

Swish!

Su Heng raised his hand.

The Tai Sui Fungus Strain was activated, and a cluster of white fog formed in the palm of his hand before spreading outwards.

The bloody marks on the ground, the corpses of the Luo Family elders, were quickly wrapped in the white fog and then rapidly withered away. Pieces of flesh known as Tai Sui condensed and gathered into a considerable mass within the underground palace.

Merely these flesh Tai Sui alone were a fruitful harvest.

Yet, doing this always gave Su Heng a sense of repulsion as if he were eating "leftovers".

Renewing his grudge against the Taotie, Su Heng found a clean garment, wrapped the flesh Tai Sui in it, and carried it on his back.

Moving straight forward, he arrived at the end of this section of the underground palace.

He turned the torch.

The ground trembled slightly, and the wall in front of him actually recessed down, quickly revealing a passageway.

"It actually worked." Su Heng had deduced that there was space behind the wall when the fungus strain spread.

However, he was not sure how to enter.

Turning the torch was just a subconscious attempt. He didn't expect that the torch actually hid a mechanism.

Click!

Su Heng stepped into the pitch-dark corridor.

He triggered a trap, and a crisp mechanical sound came from inside, as two arrows more than a meter long shot out explosively.

The arrows carried a faint layer of green glow, evidently laced with deadly poison, deadly on contact with blood. But Su Heng simply waved his hand and caught the two arrows, snapped them, and threw them to the ground, continuing forward.

After walking only a couple of steps, the ceiling opened up, and two wooden nozzles emerged abruptly.

A vast cloud of green smoke enveloped Su Heng.

Unfortunately for the traps,

Even the stomach acid of the Taotie had no apparent effect on Su Heng, let alone this poison gas.

The Green Wood Longevity Technique was circulating within him, endlessly, and together with Su Heng's extraordinarily powerful physique, this poison fog was kept at bay.

Su Heng surmised

that it was due to the incorrect angle of the torch's rotation which activated the traps in the corridor.

But it didn't matter; the more traps and the tighter the defenses,

the more it indicated that there were important treasures hidden in the secret chamber at the end of the corridor, possibly even the Luo Family's core heritage.

Bang!

Su Heng smashed the stone door at the end of the corridor with a punch.

Swinging his hand to dispel the dust, he lit the torch and entered the final secret chamber.

The firelight dispersed the darkness. Contrary to what one might expect, this closely guarded chamber was not filled with gold and silver treasures but looked somewhat empty under the illumination of the firelight.

The air was permeated with the stale scent of camphor balls, and several wooden boxes were placed in the corner.

What drew the most attention was the mural on the wall.

The mural depicted a giant with a majestic visage and flowing beard, wielding a spear with chains, exorcising demons, akin to a guardian deity from a New Year painting.

The demon pinned beneath the giant's foot looked familiar; upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the Taotie he had encountered before.

"Hiss..."

Su Heng took a deep breath, squinted his eyes, and rubbed his temples with a touch of headache.

The mural seemed simple at first glance, but upon closer observation, it conveyed countless pieces of information that rushed into his mind, causing Su Heng's spirit to feel somewhat congested.

"This is the fundamental chart of a Cultivation Technique, and its quality is exceptionally high." Su Heng was no longer the greenhorn from Changqing County who knew nothing.

Following Su Li for the past several days, he had already constructed a general framework of martial arts.

Looking around, sure enough.

On the other walls, Su Heng found more text and images.

They included stance training, the Heart Sutra, breathing techniques and so on. Su Heng patiently took note of all these texts and images.

After he finished and confirmed everything was accurate,

Su Heng took a deep breath; even with his many experiences and mind superior to that of common folks,

watching the gray characters emerge on the attribute panel still caused his heart to throb violently twice with excitement that was hard to suppress.

Because the Cultivation Technique on the walls

was precisely what Su Heng had dreamt of, a technique that could improve digestive ability, and increase the speed of attribute point acquisition.

[Taotie Technique not yet mastered (Advancing to the next realm may awaken the Divine Skill "Secondary Stomach," creating a mustard seed space within the body to store food.)]

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