Longevity by Grinding Skills

Chapter 378: Chapter 378: Human Material

Seeing the shock on Bi Yuan’s face, Xu Yunfan didn’t waste any time and asked again about Ancestral Master Chunyang, his curiosity piqued.

"Because he slew someone he should not have."

"Those Outer Heaven Demons?"

"...Yes," Bi Yuan said, his tone heavy. "This is also why I spared no expense to help you reach the Land Immortal Realm."

Before he could say more...

The words had barely left his mouth when a tremendous sound, like the ripping of silk, tore across the sky.

Master and disciple looked up simultaneously. The once-azure sky was now stained as if with blood. Amidst the churning crimson clouds, a pitch-black rift spanning a thousand miles materialized out of thin air.

In the depths of the rift, countless twisted shadows writhed, as if some behemoth was trying to squeeze into this world.

Even more terrifying, countless blood-red threads hung down from the clouds.

"Blood threads entwine bone, the heavens weep as demons descend..."

CRACK! The teacup in Bi Yuan’s hand shattered, and his face fell. "The Outer Heaven Demons have arrived! I’m not ready, and the Taoist Sect isn’t ready, either. We should have had several more years..."

Seeing the distraught Bi Yuan, Xu Yunfan narrowed his eyes and placed a hand on his master’s shoulder. "Master, I am already in the Land Immortal Realm."

At these words, Bi Yuan’s panic subsided. He looked at Xu Yunfan with a complicated expression.

"Yunfan, I just want to save the Taoist Sect."

Xu Yunfan nodded slightly. "I’ll take care of it."

"Ants of the Divine Martial Realm..."

With a crisp sound of tearing space, more than thirty Outer Heaven Demons followed the blood-red threads and landed lightly. The World Talisman Jades hanging from their waists pulsed with a faint blue light, obviously still thrumming from the shock of their cross-world Teleportation.

The leader patted the dust from his robes and frowned at the bronze compass in his hand, which was trembling violently. The needle spun erratically like a headless fly before finally, shakily, pointing toward a few faint specks of light to the southeast.

"How strange! The *Dragon Raising Record* clearly stated that this world had at least thirty-six ’specimens’ ripe for harvesting!"

A round-faced disciple exclaimed in surprise. On the Spirit Testing Disc in his hand, the crimson glimmers representing High-tier Martial Artists were few and far between. "Not even a tenth of them are left?"

From the back of the group came the crisp sound of an object falling to the ground.

The group turned to the sound and saw a tall, thin disciple, his face as pale as paper, his trembling finger pointing at the collapsed main peak of the Sword Pavilion in the distance.

That majestic mountain, which should have been soaring with Sword Qi that pierced the clouds, now looked like tofu crushed by a celestial hammer, leaving only crumbling ruins.

A few weak wisps of Sword Intent, like dying Floating Threads, flickered among the ruins, on the verge of dissipating entirely. Such a pathetic amount of Martial Dao Sword Intent was utterly insignificant.

"Th... This place..."

The tall, thin disciple’s Adam’s apple bobbed violently, his voice as dry as sandpaper. "The *Celestial Boundary Atlas* clearly recorded this place as the Sword Dao Holy Land where ’A Thousand Peaks Vied for Glory, and Ten Thousand Swords Resounded.’ It was supposed to be a place of Martial Sword Cultivators personally enlightened by the Divine Martial Daoist Master..."

He frantically pulled a yellowed, ancient tome from his robes, his trembling fingers flipping to a marked page. "Master’s notes can’t be wrong... How did it turn into this? Don’t tell me... something’s actually wrong with the Dragon Nurturing Skill?"

"Bullshit!"

The scar-faced leader bellowed, kicking a nearby millstone-sized boulder and shattering it to pieces.

As stone fragments flew, the veins on his forehead bulged. "The Dragon Nurturing Skill, personally planted by the Hundred Flowers True Daoist Monarch three thousand years ago, can even warp the World Heaven Law. How could it possibly go wrong?"

He grabbed the tall, thin disciple’s collar, his savage face almost touching the other’s. "If you dare spout any more nonsense, I’ll sacrifice you to my banner first!"

Suddenly, the crisp sound of an object falling to the ground came from the rear of the group.

The group turned and saw a round-faced disciple slumped on the ground, the Spirit Testing Disc having slipped from his fingers.

His once smugly satisfied face was now twisted into an ugly mask. "I... I borrowed three hundred Contribution Points from the Joyful Courtyard!"

He tore at his hair, his voice choked with sobs. "If I can’t harvest enough ’Blood Food’ this time, with the compound interest..."

Those words were like a bucket of cold water dumped over their heads.

More than half of the disciples in the group turned pale. They had either mortgaged their Lifebound Magical Artifacts, signed a Flesh Contract with Hundred Desires Peak, or, even worse, taken out high-interest loans like the round-faced disciple.

If they returned empty-handed from this trip, a fate worse than death would await them.

They would be drained of their emotions and desires to be refined into a Human Pill, or used as materials, their very Divine Souls taken for sacrificial refining. The best possible outcome would be getting sent to the Outer Domain Battlefield as cannon fodder...

The mountain wind howled, kicking up dust from the Sword Pavilion’s ruins. The thirty-some disciples from the Primordial Sect stood frozen in place, like statues carved from clay and wood.

The mountain wind moaned, carrying a faint presence as it swirled upward.

Just as the thirty-some Primordial Sect disciples stood frozen, a figure cloaked in crimson and gold abruptly appeared before them. He seemed to step directly out of the void, so suddenly that the air itself had not yet begun to shimmer.

The mountain wind ceased. In unison, the thirty-some disciples of the Primordial Sect stared at the crimson-gold figure that had just appeared.

After a brief moment of shock, a strange excitement appeared on their faces. Instead of panicking, they looked like hunters who had discovered a rare prize.

The scar-faced leader narrowed his eyes, a purple-black aura swirling deep within his pupils.

He looked Xu Yunfan up and down, then suddenly grinned, revealing deathly white teeth. "What a fine Divine Martial Body!"

He licked his lips, his voice filled with irrepressible greed. "Bones and sinews tempered like dragon marrow, a Divine Soul like a condensed Red Sun crystal... If we take this back to Hundred Desires Peak, it’ll be worth at least a thousand Contribution Points!"

The round-faced disciple beside him hurriedly took out his bronze compass. The needle trembled wildly, pointing at Xu Yunfan, and rare gilded patterns appeared on its face. "Senior Brother, look! He has Profound Yellow Dragon Qi in his body, and... and an Anomaly of ten interwoven Martial Arts Origins!"

His voice grew shrill with excitement. "What Blood Food? This is clearly a living ’Divine Martial Dao Seed’! Perhaps the Divine Martial Daoist Master left something behind in the Divine Martial Realm!"

Hearing this, the very flesh on the scar-faced man’s face twitched with ecstasy.

He took a sharp step forward, the Hundred Desires Banner at his waist fluttering without any wind. "Kid, you’ve got some nerve."

He stared at the Ten Extremes True Qi flowing beneath Xu Yunfan’s skin, his Adam’s apple bobbing. "A mere Martial Artist, to have tempered his physique to such a degree... Impressive, truly impressive..."

Xu Yunfan coldly watched this group of Primordial Sect disciples as they vied with each other to divide up his body like common butchers in a market.

"That eyeball between his brows belongs to my Hundred Desires Peak! We might be able to refine a Magical Artifact out of it."

"His spine has been tempered to be as hard as iron, it should be refined into medicinal ingredients!"

"The Martial Arts True Qi in his body must be carved out whole. It’s worth at least eight hundred Contribution Points..."

"Interesting... As disciples of the Primordial Sect, to be so base. It seems I misjudged you."

Hearing Xu Yunfan reveal their origins, the scar-faced disciple was a little surprised. "I didn’t expect a native of the Divine Martial Realm Heaven to know of our Primordial Sect. It seems the seniors who came before us really stumbled in the gutter."

A hint of derision appeared on the faces of most of the Primordial Sect disciples present.

In the eyes of their Primordial Demon Sect, to fail in a mere World Heaven was a clear sign of incompetence. There was no other explanation.

The corners of Xu Yunfan’s mouth lifted in a slight smile as the Ten Extremes True Qi roared within his body.