Chapter 548 509: Sword Moves in the Fierce West Wind, Horses Whinny in the Night

In the Cultivation Room, Song Ciwan organized the Heaven and Earth Scale while using the downtime to regulate her own condition.

Another full hour passed. As Midnight was about to end, Song Ciwan hurried to use up her four remaining trade opportunities for the day.

[You sold five taels and six maces of Alien Gu corpse ash, tainted by the Divine Power of the Ancient Divine Insect Race, and obtained three taels and six maces of the material: Spirit God Insect Bait.]

Spirit God Insect Bait: A Spiritual Material with an extremely strong attraction to all types of insects. When burned, it can lure in hordes of them. After consumption, there is a chance the insects will fall into various states of chaos and frenzy.

'This stuff is good!'

What was strange, however, was that the Heaven and Earth Scale hadn't assigned a Level to the Spirit God Insect Bait, nor had it specified if its effects were limited to any particular Cultivation Level.

Song Ciwan pondered for a moment before taking out a Jade Box to store the Spirit God Insect Bait. Then, all at once, she sold off all her remaining corpse ash.

[You sold four jin and three taels of Alien Gu corpse ash, tainted by the Divine Power of the Ancient Divine Insect Race, and obtained three jin and nine taels of the material: Spirit God Insect Bait.]

After storing the bait, she had two trade opportunities left.

[You sold one jin and two taels of Bad Luck from an Alien Gu tainted by the Divine Power of the Ancient Divine Insect Race, and obtained the Marvel: Demonic Guise Pass.]

Demonic Guise Pass: A Four-star Level Marvel. This is a strange credential that allows the holder to perfectly assume the aura of a Demon for fifteen minutes, letting them blend into a crowd of Demons and pass for one of them.

Note: This item is only Four-star Level. The user's Cultivation cannot exceed the Divinity Transformation Stage or other equivalent Cultivation Realms.

Song Ciwan had nine more such clumps of Bad Luck. She proceeded to merge and sell all nine of them at once.

In the end, she didn't receive a higher-Level Demonic Guise Pass, but rather nine individual Four-star ones.

Thus, she now possessed a total of ten Demonic Guise Passes.

'What a strange item. I have no idea what situation would allow me to maximize its value.'

With that, all ten of the day's trade opportunities were used up.

Song Ciwan sat cross-legged to meditate and rest for a while. When Midnight passed, a new set of ten trade opportunities appeared.

This time, she selected from the many human desires she had obtained today—

She only chose the human desires from Cultivators at the Divinity Transformation Stage, the Innate Third Transformation, or higher. Each had to be from a specific individual and had to be one that hadn't been used in a trade before. She picked out seven such clumps.

She consumed her Primordial Pearls, performing a designated trade on them one by one.

[You sold two jin and seven taels of human desires (shame, vexation, and lingering fear from a Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivator). You consumed 5,000 Primordial Pearls for a designated trade and obtained the complete Five Elements Qi Healing Technique.]

[You sold human desires... and obtained the complete Ten Thousand Spirits Soul Stabilizing Method.]

[You sold human desires... and obtained the complete Yin Yang Relief Needle Skill.]

[You sold human desires... and obtained the complete Body Shaping Spirit Guiding Technique.]

[You sold human desires... and obtained a copy of the High Level Spiritual Materials Collection.]

[You sold human desires... and obtained the beginner's volume of the Star Number Array Solving Daoist Skill.]

[You sold human desires... and obtained the first volume of the Five Elements Water Element Technique.]

After seven consecutive trades, Song Ciwan had reaped a bountiful harvest.

She had never received such a well-rounded haul. It was mainly thanks to her exchange with the Medical Cultivators today. The discussion had broadened her horizons and expanded her knowledge, allowing her to accurately designate the trades for things she truly needed.

Otherwise, she would have been back to her old ways—either opening blind boxes or, even with designated trades, receiving items that weren't nearly as comprehensive.

No wonder it was said that the four essentials of Cultivation were wealth, methods, companions, and location. Resources and Dharma Gates were indispensable, but a Daoist partner for cultivation was equally important.

This "partner" didn't refer to a "spouse" in the narrow sense, but to any living being with whom one could discuss Daoist Skills.

Working in isolation for too long was just shackling oneself. Going out to meet some fellow cultivators was also part of the path of Cultivation.

Song Ciwan committed the seven new Daoist Skills to memory. Unlike the Fetal Breathing Saint Method, she hadn't yet begun to cultivate these new skills in depth. For each one, she had only just reached the beginner level.

It wasn't that she lacked time for Cultivation. She still had plenty of human desires left in her Heaven and Earth Scale, enough to trade for a vast amount of cultivation time—more than enough for whatever she wanted to practice.

But Song Ciwan had just "cultivated for a hundred years" today, and now she truly felt burned out from all the training.

For the next three to five days, she probably wouldn't be entering the Cultivation Space to practice.

She needed to adjust, to decompress, and to balance the extreme disconnect she felt between the real world and the Void Cultivation Space.

She had three trade opportunities left for the day. No longer wanting to trade human desires, Song Ciwan took out the Deer-Horse Demon Corpse she had collected earlier.

She wondered, 'Should I just throw this Demon Corpse—one that cultivated a Foundation Establishment Method—into the Heaven and Earth Scale and sell it whole, or should I cook it first?'

'Or perhaps… I should dissect this Demon Corpse and see where its Tao Foundation is located?'

The moment the thought occurred to her, Song Ciwan prepared to act.

She first cast the Xuanwu Mountain Observation Seal, layering herself with two levels of protection. After reconfirming the sturdiness of the Cultivation Room, she retrieved a Magical Treasure from her Heaven and Earth Scale—the Flying Sword known as the Void Escape Sword.

Song Ciwan intended to use the Flying Sword as a dagger to dissect the Deer-Horse Demon Corpse.

'First cut: disembowel the beast!'

Her True Qi flowed. Song Ciwan's Spiritual Eyes opened. The tip of the sword followed the grain of the flesh and, in a flash, sliced halfway through the Demon Corpse's abdomen.

But Song Ciwan's movements suddenly halted. An extremely intense sense of unease welled up in her heart; a feeling of vast, omnipresent danger assailed her from the unseen.

The Deer-Horse Demon Corpse lay motionless, but Song Ciwan's heart suddenly began to pound furiously. THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.

With a flick of her wrist, she instantly stored the Void Escape Sword in the Heaven and Earth Scale and recalled the Deer-Horse Demon Corpse to her Vast Sea Grotto Heaven.

Song Ciwan quickly cast a Purification Spell on herself, washing away any aura she might have been tainted with. She then summoned a ball of Spirit Water and quickly washed her hands.

Her hands were already clean after the spell, but she washed them anyway.

She then cast the Great Derivation Birth Skill to flush her system and probe the Celestial Secret.

The sense of crisis didn't fade. An indescribable, prickling sensation remained, like thorns against her back, making her inexplicably uneasy… No, that wasn't it!

Song Ciwan had assumed her unease stemmed from her attempt to dissect the Deer-Horse Demon Corpse and examine its Tao Foundation. But as she focused on the feeling, a sudden realization struck her: 'No, this sudden sense of dread isn't because of the Demon Corpse.'

'Then what is it?'

'Right. It's the Mingqiu Desert. It's the outside world!'

'The Mingqiu Desert is no sanctuary. The danger is coming from outside.'

'Something dangerous is about to happen in the real world!'

Song Ciwan immediately concealed all outward signs of the Xuanwu Mountain Observation Seal within her body, washed her hands again, then pushed open the door and stepped out of the Cultivation Room.

Beyond the door of the Cultivation Room lay their camp.

Six bonfires still burned brightly. In their flickering light, the night watchmen of the West Wind Army stood in small groups. Some were squatting by the flames, while others stood at the perimeter, facing away from the camp. The Red Blood Horses rested on their feet, occasionally stamping a hoof or letting out a soft snort.

Everything looked perfectly normal.