The Revenge of the Reborn Supreme Sovereign-Chapter 81 - 80: Sprinkle him with saltwater before talking numbers!
「Dianbai.」
A border county town located in the western part of Jiangdong.
「Shuidong.」
A bustling small town about twenty or thirty kilometers from the city center.
Beneath the lurid glow of colorful neon lights, Qin Fan and Ma Yunbin stepped out of their car and entered a high-end hotel.
"Master Qin, how about we freshen up and then go relax a bit?" Ma Yunbin asked with a fawning smile, trailing half a step behind Qin Fan.
"Uh-huh!" Qin Fan gave a slight nod, inserted the key card, and pushed open the door to his room.
He didn’t head straight for the bathroom. The moment the door swung shut, he collapsed onto the bed. The only thing he felt was exhaustion. He was just so tired.
In the early stage of Qi Refinement, and I fought a Jiao Dragon alone. Even though its Spiritual Wisdom hadn’t awakened, it was still a battle far beyond my level!
His body’s True Qi was nearly drained. In his current state, forget a Transformation Realm Grandmaster; if even two or three Dark Energy experts were to corner him, he would likely be doomed.
Reaching up to rub his temples, Qin Fan reluctantly rolled to his feet. With great effort, he shoved the two large hotel beds aside and moved the tables and chairs, clearing a space in the middle of the room. Once the area was empty, he summoned the Qiankun Bag and tossed out the slain Jiao Dragon.
BANG!
The Jiao Dragon appeared as if from thin air, crashing heavily onto the floor. The thick, pungent stench of blood filled the room, but after five hundred years of cultivation on the Cangqiong Continent, Qin Fan had endured smells far worse than this. A little blood barely registered.
After coiling the Jiao Dragon’s body into a circle, Qin Fan sat cross-legged in the center. He calmed his heart, steadied his breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated his mind.
Three minutes passed.
A refreshing coolness began to permeate his body from every meridian. Subsequently, the scant True Qi remaining within him burst forth. In a flash, an invisible yet tangible aura began swirling around the hotel room, eventually forming an invisible protective shield that enclosed both Qin Fan and the Jiao Dragon.
"I hope this thing gives me a pleasant surprise!" he murmured with a wry smile.
As his sea of consciousness entered a state of clarity, Qin Fan immediately summoned the Cangqiong Refining Body Decision. The instant the technique was activated, the coiled Jiao Dragon on the floor seemed to twitch, shivering imperceptibly. A faint crackling noise sounded from within its corpse.
Following that, nearly invisible wisps of white gas began to seep from the Jiao Dragon’s surface, rising into the air. As if drawn by an unseen force, they all vied to rush into Qin Fan’s ears and nostrils, swiftly traveling through his meridians and into his Dantian.
With his eyes closed and his mind focused, an uncontrollable grin of elation spread across Qin Fan’s face.
I originally assumed this Jiao Dragon, with its unawakened Spiritual Wisdom, was at most two hundred years old. But now, judging by the ceaseless stream of Beast Essence I’m absorbing, it has to be at least three hundred!
As the joy on his face grew, the flow of Beast Essence from the Jiao Dragon began to slow. With a soft PLOP, the Jiao Dragon’s body, which had been tensed under the influence of the Cangqiong Refining Body Decision, went completely slack and slumped to one side.
At the same time, Qin Fan’s eyes flew open, his face alight with unconcealed exuberance.
"What a surprise, a real surprise! This Jiao Dragon actually held three hundred years of Beast Essence. This hunt was more than worth it, ha-ha!"
He burst into laughter. The oppressive fatigue vanished completely as his Dantian filled to saturation, replaced by a surge of endless vitality. His cultivation, which had been consolidating in the early stage of Qi Refinement, soared with the infusion of three hundred years of Beast Essence. He broke through to the very peak of the early stage, leaving him only a single step away from the middle stage of Qi Refinement. For Qin Fan, this was a truly delightful surprise.
"Let’s see if this fellow managed to form a Crystal Core!" Qin Fan muttered to himself in his excitement.
Without hesitation, he waved his hand. The Jiao Dragon’s body, over ten meters long, instantly stretched out straight across the room. Aiming for the spot in its belly where a Crystal Core would be nurtured, Qin Fan channeled his True Qi and made a swift slicing gesture through the air.
SRIIIP—
With a crisp tearing sound, the Jiao Dragon’s abdomen was neatly sliced open. Immediately, an object appeared, glowing with a faint green light. It was three to four centimeters in both length and width and shaped like a date pit.
"Ha-ha, it really has a Crystal Core! Three to four centimeters... does that make it a quasi-Fourth-Rank Demon Beast? A shame. They achieve Spirit Awakening at the Fifth Rank. If its Spiritual Wisdom had awakened, this Crystal Core would have been enough to propel me into the late stage of Qi Refinement!" Qin Fan mused with a hint of regret.
But then again, if I’d run into this Jiao Dragon any later, it probably would have been claimed as a prize by those Fortune Tellers and Magicians. It never would have been my turn, he thought. Oh well. The Crystal Core of a quasi-Fourth-Rank Demon Beast is enough for me to break through into the middle stage of Qi Refinement. As for the Spiritual Medicine I had the Ye Family find, I originally intended to use it to push for the middle stage. Now, it seems using it to consolidate my new level will be a good choice!
Muttering to himself, Qin Fan plucked out the Crystal Core. Then, with another gesture, he sent the intact Jiao Dragon carcass back into his Qiankun Bag. He immediately took out a sheet of Yellow Paper and drew a Cleaning Talisman and a Fragrance Talisman. Using his True Qi as a catalyst, he flicked his wrist. The Talismans vanished into thin air, and the bloodstains and lingering odors left by the Jiao Dragon were completely eradicated, replaced by a refreshing, pleasant scent that filled the room.
Satisfied, he stood up. Just as he was about to head to the bathroom for a much-needed wash, Qin Fan suddenly froze. He looked up at the clock on the wall.
Has it already been almost two hours? And Ma Yunbin hasn’t contacted me? Could something have happened?
A frown creased his brow.
But just at that moment, a desperate, howling scream erupted from the adjacent room. Although the hotel rooms were soundproofed, to someone like Qin Fan, such barriers were meaningless if he chose to listen.
"Master Qin, save me! Master Qin, help me!" Ma Yunbin wailed, his voice a mixture of shame, rage, and sheer panic.
"Master Qin? Hmph, even your ancestors couldn’t save you now!" a contemptuous voice sneered.
CRACK!
A belt viciously lashed across Ma Yunbin’s body. Accompanied by a shriek worthy of a pig being slaughtered, an angry red welt, throbbing with fiery pain, appeared on his skin.
"Think you’re hot stuff just ’cause you have a Beijing accent, huh?" a voice said in broken Mandarin. "Let me tell you, this is Dianbai! A place where outsiders never get to call the shots!"
As the words fell, the sharp crack of the belt striking flesh echoed several more times. Ma Yunbin’s howls grew even more pathetic; he was close to screaming his throat raw. The pain of being whipped with a belt was not something an ordinary person could endure.
"Hey, bring the saltwater! Let’s sprinkle some on him before we continue our little ’chat’!" the man with the broken Mandarin cackled coldly.
Saltwater? Pouring saltwater on open wounds? Damn it! These worthless bastards!
"Boss! Boss, please! Don’t do that! I’ll give you money! I’ll pay!" Ma Yunbin cried out in desperation. This was already torture; if they added saltwater, he couldn’t imagine the agony.
BANG!
Just as Ma Yunbin’s desperate offer of money was about to change his fate, the door to the room was violently kicked open.
Qin Fan strode in, a dark, murderous expression on his face.
