Cultivation Begins From The Desert-Chapter 716 - 700: Great Gains!

Whimper!

When Huan Qianqian's Primordial Spirit was forcibly awakened from her coma by external powers, she moaned and opened her eyes, only to be half scared to death by the situation before her.

In the cold and desolate ruins of the Demon City, ten or more men surrounded her at the center, all staring at her intently, their eyes glimmering with cold light, full of malice.

Under the sweep of these malicious gazes, goosebumps popped up all over her bare body, causing her to shiver and shrink into a ball.

If someone unrelated were to witness this scene, anyone with a semblance of justice would certainly feel compelled to leap out and "uphold justice" at this sight.

Yet, there had just been a great battle here, and aside from Zhouyang and other Nascent Soul Cultivators, which Cultivator would dare to come?

These ten Nascent Soul Cultivators had seen all sorts of scenarios, even though Huan Qianqian, the witch, was exceedingly beautiful, her quivering appearance now being pitiable and sweet, they couldn't muster a bit of sympathy.

Nie Yushuang harshly rebuked her, "Shameless wretch, put away your little tricks. If you're sensible, honestly explain what you know. We might grant you the option to self-disintegrate. But if you persist in being unsensible, I have methods to leave you living in agony, unable to desire either heaving a sigh or death!"

"Explain what? What do you want me to explain? I don't know what you mean!"

With eyes full of confusion, Huan Qianqian looked up at Nie Yushuang. Meeting Nie Yushuang's icy gaze, her body trembled again, and she couldn't help but say, "I truly don't know what you're talking about. Knowing I've fallen into the hands of Cultivators like you, there's definitely no good outcome. Whether you want to kill or carve me, do as you please. I'm not going to deceive you."

After speaking, she ignored Nie Yushuang and Zhouyang's thoughts on whether to believe her, and simply laid down, stretching open her body with closed eyes ready to let them do as they pleased.

"Indeed a shameless demon!"

Master Cyan Yang couldn't resist cursing, turning his head aside, unwilling to sully his eyes.

He had practiced Cultivation for over a millennium without nearing feminine allure in the slightest, though his Dao Heart remained stalwart and unseduced by the witch's display, he didn't want to desecrate his own eyes with that shameless witch.

And though the other Nascent Soul Cultivators such as Zhouyang didn't mind this, they didn't enjoy watching a female demon naked.

Especially with Master Cyan Yang's conduct, none of them wished to mar their own reputation over trifles.

Immediately, Zhouyang waved his hand, tossing a yellow Magic Robe possibly acquired from some unfortunate spirit over the witch, covering most of her bare body.

Facing Nie Yushuang's probing gaze, Zhouyang gently shook his head saying, "Master Nie, please forgive me. I cannot ascertain whether this witch is lying, since there's precedent in the Cultivation Realm for memory loss from Primordial Spirit injury."

Lying flat on the ground waiting for death, the witch, hearing his words, while her expression revealed nothing, couldn't help but be secretly delighted with her own cleverness.

Yet before long, her delight turned into anger at Zhouyang's next words, causing her to tremble involuntarily, her heart growing cold and icy.

"In my opinion, since we can't obtain the answers we seek from this witch, we may as well bring her back first, then have Master Nie perform a Soul Searching Skill on her to verify her claims!"

Zhouyang spoke of the Soul Searching Skill with a nonchalant expression, as though unconcerned that it was a Forbidden Technique prohibited to Cultivators.

And upon hearing him, Nie Yushuang and the others found no issue, nobody spoke out against it.

Only Master Cyan Yang murmured under his breath, "Against these wicked demons, it indeed seems unnecessary to worry over such trivialities."

"Who dares! Dare any of you to search my soul; I'd fight to the spirit's obliteration rather than let them off easily!"

Huan Qianqian finally could endure no more, shouting in a sharp voice full of fury and protest.

However, with the seals on her body yet to be undone, her Magical Power remained inaccessible, rendering her words mere mockery to the ears of the Cultivators.

Nie Yushuang didn't even glance at her, deciding instantly, "That settles it. We'll take her back, and once I'm prepared, we'll use Soul Searching to uncover the truth."

As he spoke, with a wave of his hand, a wave of cold air fell upon Huan Qianqian, instantly encasing her in ice, leaving her without a chance to speak.

After completing this task, Nie Yushuang smiled and looked at Zhouyang, saying, "Fellow Daoist Zhou is truly powerful, you can even capture such a Nascent Soul Stage witch alive. If we can uncover the secrets of the demon cultivators from this witch, I will certainly prepare great gifts to thank you!"

Zhouyang released the witch Huan Qianqian, knowing it would attract attention from the cultivators. Now, facing Nie Yushuang's praise, he could only smile bitterly and cupped his hands, saying, "It was largely due to luck, I am ashamed and cannot accept such high praise."

Hearing this, Nie Yushuang understood that he didn't want to discuss the matter further, and thus, wouldn't go against the intentions of this major contributor.

Immediately, he stopped the topic and said, "It was my oversight. Fellow Daoists fought hard today and surely need some rest. Let's return and recover first, we can discuss matters later."

The cultivators understood this, and no one inappropriately brought up the subject further. Together they boarded Nie Yushuang's flying ship artifact and returned to Ice City.

Upon returning to the city, Zhouyang first visited his Dao companion Xiao Ying, who was helping heal injured cultivators in the city. After recounting the battle, he entered his arranged cave residence to meditate and recover.

He wasn't significantly injured in the battle, but while attacking the witch Huan Qianqian with the Godslaying Sword, his Divine Sense was overly exhausted and needed several days to fully recover.

Therefore, after two days of meditation recovering his magical power, he proceeded to tally his gains from this battle.

In this battle, he killed one demonic cultivator and captured another. The dead demon path demonic cultivator was entirely refined along with their artifact, naturally leaving no gains.

However, before handing over the witch Huan Qianqian to Nie Yushuang, he had already taken her storage ring.

Now, he retrieved this storage ring, disregarding whether its owner was still alive, and forcibly erased the original owner's Divine Sense mark inside, then took out everything within.

There were no gruesome cultivator corpses or organs, nor many demonic materials filled with Yin Qi and resentment; the items within the witch Huan Qianqian's storage ring were unexpectedly and excessively "clean" considering her identity as a demonic cultivator.

Demonic cultivators ravaged the Beiting Continent Cultivation Realm, not knowing how many sects, clans, and independent cultivators fell victim to them. A Nascent Soul Stage demonic cultivator like Huan Qianqian naturally amassed plundered wealth.

Beiting Continent Cultivation Realm is abundant with materials like Cold Iron and Ice Jade, and in Huan Qianqian's storage ring, Zhouyang obtained a large amount of Tier Five Ice Attribute Spiritual Objects like Thousand-Year Cold Iron, Thousand-Year Ice Jade, Ice Crystal Profound Jade, Ice Soul Profound Crystal Stone, and even discovered several pieces of Tier Six Spiritual Objects like Ten Thousand Years Profound Jade and Ten Thousand Years Cold Iron.

However, the items Zhouyang was most satisfied with weren't these artifact refining materials, but a Snow Soul Pearl, a bottle of Cold Jade Essence, and a Thousand-year Ice Soul Grass.

Snow Soul Pearl is a spiritual object endemic to the Extreme North Icefield, only located within the bodies of certain creatures called "Snow Spirit Profound Beast" residing in the Extreme North Icefield.

The "Snow Spirit Profound Beast" isn't particularly strong, and Golden Core Stage cultivators have a chance to slay them.

Yet, the quantity is extremely scarce, appearing once every hundred years, along with having wary nature and mastery over escape techniques and divine abilities.

The Snow Soul Pearl obtained from within the "Snow Spirit Profound Beast" is one of the best spiritual objects for Ice Element cultivators to refine lifebound spiritual artifacts. When using this item to refine lifebound spiritual artifacts, there's a unique benefit over ordinary spiritual objects, the ability to directly enhance the artifact's power by fusing a second or third Snow Soul Pearl, even leveling up in power!

Previously, Zhouyang saved that Beiting Continent Nascent Soul Stage cultivator Lu Hongyi during a battle at Demon City, and the Tier Six Middle Grade Spiritual Artifact Ice Soul Cold Jade Pearl in Lu Hongyi's possession was refined using the Snow Soul Pearl as its main material.

This item is unusable for Zhouyang but can be granted to his disciple Lu Xuewei to aid in enhancing the power of her lifebound spiritual artifact, Ice Soul Profound Pearl.

As for the bottle of Cold Jade Essence, Zhouyang plans to use it himself. Neither he nor his Dao companion Xiao Ying has previously used it to temper their physical magical power, and the bottle obtained this time contains over fifty drops, just enough for them.

Lastly, the Thousand-year Ice Soul Grass can be used to refine a rare spirit pill called the Ice Soul Pill, which can protect a cultivator who consumes it beforehand from the effects of most illusion techniques and enchanting skills, and reportedly, has some effect for cultivators experiencing Heart Demon Tribulation.

Apart from the treasures mentioned, the witch Huan Qianqian's storage ring contained numerous elixirs, spirit talismans, and spiritual artifacts used by cultivators, although these items aren't much use to Zhouyang, they are still high-tier items reaching Tier Four or Five, possessing good value.

Additionally, in the storage ring, Zhouyang discovered seventeen Spirit Marrow Stones, nearly two hundred top-grade spirit stones, and over fifty thousand middle-grade spirit stones.

As a demon cultivator, even though the storage ring's contents seemed "clean" to Zhouyang, it couldn't have absolutely no demonic items.

Zhouyang didn't burn all these demonic items like he used to do; instead, he checked each item thoroughly, kept those he deemed unnecessary to destroy, and burnt the remaining ones completely.

The items he selected were not many, only a handful of five or six, among which three were jade scrolls.

The other three items consisted of a white transparent garment seemingly woven from mist, a beast hide demon talisman, and a thumb-sized black crystal stone.

Firstly, the white transparent garment, this item was refined using silk from a rare silkworm combined with Illusion Demon Dao Secret Techniques by the witch Huan Qianqian, forming a demon artifact. Once worn, it immediately grants invisibility, concealing every hint of aura.

Zhouyang tried it out and found that even with his formidable Divine Sense, if someone wore this veil and remained still, they would need to scan inch by inch to notice anything unusual.

However, this effect only occurs when standing still. If one were to continue flying while wearing the veil, the invisibility effect would be much worse, detectable by any Nascent Soul Stage cultivator.

Even with this drawback, this item is an invaluable treasure, even though it is a Demon Artifact.

Then there's the beast hide demon talisman. After Zhouyang identified it, it seems to seal an escape divine technique, perhaps the same kind of Divine Techniques as those numerous clones of Demoness Huan Qianqian.

Although this is a demon talisman and poses the risk of demonic qi entering the body upon use, if truly encountering a crisis requiring this item to escape, compared to saving one's life, the mere intrusion of demonic qi seems insignificant.

Therefore, Zhouyang decided to keep this item as a backup.

Lastly, concerning the thumb-sized ink-black crystal, Zhouyang couldn't discern its origin. The only thing he could feel was that it contained extremely pure demonic qi.

To his eyes, even the demonic qi emanating from the spatial rift in the Sea of Death paled in purity compared to the demonic qi in this ink-black crystal.

And when he found this item, he somehow thought of Top-grade Spirit Stones.

The Spiritual Qi contained within Top-grade Spirit Stones is also exceedingly pure, even capable of assisting Nascent Soul Stage cultivators in breaking through cultivation bottlenecks.

In Zhouyang's view, if there were something called a demon stone, this ink-black crystal could completely be termed a "top-grade demon stone."

Though he had never heard of anything called a demon stone.

Because this item is merely a concentration of pure demonic qi, and also something he has never heard of, Zhouyang felt it was a pity to destroy it directly, thus he intended to keep it for now, and later seek identification from Master Cyan Yang and others to decide how to handle it.

After studying and examining these three items for a while, he stored them in his Storage Ring, then looked solemnly at the remaining three jade scrolls.

These three jade scrolls contained the demon techniques practiced by Demoness Huan Qianqian and various demonic secret techniques and secrets.

According to the rules of the Cultivation Realm, such demonic techniques must be destroyed upon discovery to prevent anyone from succumbing to temptation and practicing demon techniques, thus falling into the Demon Dao.

However, Zhouyang had long known that demonic secret techniques were not entirely devoid of merit; some secret techniques could be practiced and used by cultivators as well without necessarily needing to cultivate demon techniques.

Just like the "Blood Escape Technique" and "Blood Boiling Technique" that he relied on to escape several deadly crises.

Although the Illusion Demon Dao's techniques are also demonic techniques, compared to the Blood Demon Dao's evil demon techniques of vampiric cultivation, they are undoubtedly much milder.

Yet, demon techniques are still demon techniques, despite some merits, Zhouyang would not practice them.

Therefore, he briefly looked at the methods recorded within the demon techniques and then decisively crushed the jade scrolls, thoroughly destroying the contents.

Then he continued to view the jade scroll containing numerous demonic secret techniques.

This jade scroll documented over a dozen practical demonic divine techniques and secret techniques, but most of these could only be practiced and used by demonic cultivators; only three of these secret techniques could indeed be used by a cultivator like Zhouyang.

These three secret techniques are respectively known as "Enchanting Immortal Sound," "Illusory Butterfly Dream Guide," and "Soul Seizing Great Art."

"Enchanting Immortal Sound" is a sound technique divine ability that only female cultivators can practice; its effect aligns with the name, capable of mesmerizing minds, making people follow one's orders.

"Illusory Butterfly Dream Guide" is a marvelous spiritual sense application secret technique. Once mastered, it can transform a part of one's spiritual sense into an illusory butterfly and guide others into dreams, where everything they think or feel can be clearly perceived.

The most intriguing part is that those entering dreams through "Illusory Butterfly Dream Guide" won't remember the experience upon waking.

However, this technique is hard to affect Nascent Soul Stage cultivators, and even if it succeeds by chance, the subject will remember what happened afterward.

As for "Soul Seizing Great Art," Zhouyang considered destroying it but eventually held back.

This art is a highly malicious "spiritual control secret technique." Cultivators subjected to "Soul Seizing Great Art" not only have their life and death controlled by others but even their actions and thoughts can be manipulated.

Moreover, this technique can be forcibly applied without requiring voluntary acceptance like "Divine Control Art."

Should Zhouyang desire, he could capture a Golden Core Stage cultivator and use "Soul Seizing Great Art" to forcibly enslave and control them, leaving them unable to even conceive the thought of suicide!

Of course, this technique is not without flaws; first, if applied forcibly, it only works on cultivators whose cultivation is one great realm lower than the user, with uncertain success.

Secondly, each application of "Soul Seizing Great Art" imposes pressure on the user's Primordial Spirit, increasing with the enslaved cultivator's higher cultivation, potentially leading to serious backlash if pressure exceeds limits.

Lastly, the cultivation of enslaved cultivators will cease to progress, remaining stagnant unless freed from enslavement.

Calculating thus, out of the three secret techniques, Zhouyang could realistically only practice "Illusory Butterfly Dream Guide."

He was quite interested in this secret technique and immediately began attempting to practice it.

In fact, for Nascent Soul Stage cultivators, "Illusory Butterfly Dream Guide" is not difficult to practice but rather quite easy.

Zhouyang successfully cultivated this technique within about ten days, then sent an illusory butterfly, born of a wisp of his spiritual sense, to a Foundation Establishment cultivator meditating in Ice City, successfully drawing him into a dream.

Just as the secret technique described, the cultivator drawn into the dream was unable to perceive anything from the outside world, and all his thoughts and ideas were known to Zhouyang.

Zhouyang could even suggest things to the cultivator through dreams, causing him to inadvertently act on these suggestions.

After dispersing the dream, the Foundation Establishment cultivator indeed completely forgot what happened in the dream, continuing his meditation in the room, entirely unaware that there was now a Tier Four Spiritual Artifact in his Storage Bag that originally did not belong to him.

"No wonder demon cultivators are never fully eradicated; with such bizarre secret techniques, who knows how many still exist within the Demon Dao. If I harbored malicious intent, I could have used this technique to lure that novice into practicing demonic techniques, and he might unknowingly comply!"

Zhouyang put away the secret technique, reflecting on the recent events, and couldn't help but sigh.

The uncanny nature of demon techniques was something he always knew, but the more he discovered, the clearer it became that utterly wiping out all demon cultivators was an impossible feat.

Even if every cultivator could resist the temptation of demon techniques' rapid advancement and refrained from practicing them, as long as a high-tier demon cultivator remained, they could pass on demon techniques.

With a helpless shake of the head, he stopped pondering this unsolvable dilemma and turned his gaze outside the window, frowning, he muttered, "It's been a while, I wonder what is happening with Master Nie's investigation, why hasn't there been any news?"

Nie Yushuang did not suffer any significant injuries in her previous encounter with Celestial Corpse Ascendant. It's been almost half a month since Zhouyang returned, but he hasn't heard about the result of soul searching Demoness Huan Qianqian, causing a foreboding feeling to emerge in his heart.

Zhouyang's instincts were accurate. The next day after he felt that way, Nie Yushuang requested his presence.

When he arrived at Nie Yushuang's abode, he found Master Cyan Yang there as well; almost every Nascent Soul Stage cultivator in Ice City was present.

"I am ashamed," Nie Yushuang confessed regretfully, "that demoness practiced some unknown secret technique; her Primordial Spirit is as sturdy as a stone. Even when I sought others to lay a special array to assist, we couldn't breach her Primordial Spirit's defenses to find any useful information!"

Upon hearing this result, not only Zhouyang but also everyone else furrowed their brows.

Nobody questioned Nie Yushuang's competence, for as a Ninth-Layer Nascent Soul "Half-Step True Immortal," her magical power, divine techniques, and spiritual sense undoubtedly surpassed everyone present.

Therefore, when even she personally attempted, aided by a special array, yet could not open Demoness Huan Qianqian's Primordial Spirit for successful soul searching, it was clear that no one else would succeed.

Xu Tianlin promptly remarked, "If even Fellow Daoist Nie couldn't perform successful soul searching, then that approach seems unfeasible. I'm curious about why Master Nie summoned us today?"

Nie Yushuang responded with a bitter smile, "I invited everyone today mainly to brainstorm and see if any Fellow Daoist has any clever ideas to make that demoness speak voluntarily, revealing those demonic cultivators' schemes and their actual numbers."

After finishing, she paused, sweeping her gaze across the Liuyun Continent Cultivation Realm representatives like Zhouyang and spoke aloud, "There's another matter: I've received word that reinforcements from the Donghua Continent Cultivation Realm and Celestial South Continent Cultivation Realm will arrive together in seven days."