Chapter 29: Hunting Demonic Cultivators (Please add to favorites! Please keep reading!)

On this day, within the disciple's courtyard, Shao Heng sat composed in her room.

Inside her Qi Sea Dantian, the yellow sprout, through repeated tempering with the moonlight during her nightly breathing exercises, had developed a silvery-white skin that faintly shimmered with a blue, ethereal glow.

Shao Heng held a pale yellow pill in her mouth—it was precisely a First-Grade Essence Augmenting Pill.

She was no longer desperately short of resources, but as her cultivation progressed, Shao Heng discovered that increasing her power could not rely solely on the accumulation of resources.

Even a major currency like Spirit Stones, because they were compressed by the power of the earth veins, contained spiritual energy that naturally leaned toward the Earth element. Cultivating with Spirit Stones daily would inevitably lead to an accumulation of earth qi within the meridians over time, eventually hindering the circulation of her internal mana and causing stagnation.

Not to mention that medicinal pills contained pill toxins, and spiritual herbs left behind residual medicinal potency that required long-term refinement to prevent damage to the meridians from long-term accumulation.

Shao Heng had always been exceptionally careful in her cultivation, but now, while attempting to break through a minor realm bottleneck, she borrowed the power of the Essence Augmenting Pill to ensure a single, successful breakthrough.

At this moment, her mana flowed through her meridians, being repeatedly condensed through several cycles before being channeled into the yellow sprout.

At a certain moment, Shao Heng felt that the yellow sprout had reached saturation, hitting its capacity limit. She immediately swallowed the Essence Augmenting Pill; a surge of vigorous spiritual energy erupted instantly, which she guided through her cycles to continuously strike the yellow sprout.

*Thump.*

Following a faint sound, a series of crackling noises, like popping beans, erupted from within her body.

The yellow sprout expanded twofold, its surface patterns becoming deeper, and a faint, shimmering golden light began to dance upon its auspicious cloud silver patterns.

By the time Shao Heng had refined most of the pill's power, her mana had reached three hundred and three cauldrons.

She opened her mouth and exhaled a breath of foul-smelling black gas—the pill toxins and impurities of flesh and blood expelled during the breakthrough.

"It has been over three months since I began cultivating, and I have already advanced to the middle stage of the First Realm. With this speed, there is a possibility of breaking through to the late stage within six months. According to the sect's records, those with high-grade aptitude typically need about two years to reach the late First Realm."

"With my aptitude, I am absolutely top-tier, even among those with high-grade talent!"

Or rather, are there truly only three grades of aptitude: low, medium, and high?

Above high-grade aptitude, could there be...

Shao Heng cast aside her stray thoughts, stood up, and performed some stretching exercises to loosen her muscles and bones.

"Thinking more is useless; it's all speculation. Action is better than thought. Now that I've reached the middle stage of the First Realm, I must hurry and take on missions. I need to save up two thousand one; I must earn at least twenty contribution points a day."

She tidied her appearance and pushed open the door, heading toward the Law Enforcement Pavilion.

...

Dark clouds obscured the sun; a storm was brewing.

As winter had already arrived, the laws of the four seasons operated normally even within the cultivation world. The once verdant mountains were now draped in silver, shrouded in thick frost and mist, leaving nothing but silence amidst the forests.

Suddenly, a tall but gaunt gray wolf lunged from out of nowhere. As it ran, it disturbed the accumulated snow on the surrounding branches, sending it cascading down.

It moved with extreme speed, its eyes glowing with a bloody light as it pounced directly toward a specific spot.

This was clearly no ordinary beast. As its claws and teeth lunged forward, a gust of foul wind swept up, clearing the snowdrifts to reveal the true form of the woman hidden within.

Shao Heng wore snow-white garments. Facing the lunging wolf demon, green light from her spells coiled around her feet, aiding her rapid retreat.

Simultaneously, her right hand gripped the limb of the Thousand Strike Bow, while two fingers of her left hand plucked the bowstring. She drew the bow as full as a moon, her mana condensing into a silver-cast arrow.

The totem patterns on the bow limb flashed with light, converging into the shaft of the arrow. The moment she released the string, the arrow's fletching ignited with a silver flame, streaking through the air like a falling star toward the wolf's abdomen.

The arrow was incredibly fast; even though the wolf demon reacted nimbly by twisting its body, its left shoulder was still pierced.

*Boom!*

The mana arrow exploded dozens of times in succession, instantly obliterating nearly half of its body.

At that same moment, a streak of dark light attacked from behind Shao Heng.

The sharp blade pierced through her flesh, yet the wielder felt as if he had stabbed into a mass of flowing water.

Shao Heng manifested her true form from the man's shadow, her gaze cold and heavy. As she spun, a snow-white jade needle flew from her right sleeve.

This needle was named the Jade Bee Needle, a First-Grade magical tool. A full set consisted of thirty-six needles, specifically designed to break through protective mana. Having refined it herself, she could now wield it as easily as her own limbs.

Needle-type magical tools were always known for their unpredictability. At this moment, the jade needle shimmered with light, piercing through the man's blood-colored mana. Although he managed to dodge more than half, fifteen long needles still pierced through his bones and flesh.

The man crashed heavily to the ground, cursing harshly, "To think a disciple of a righteous immortal sect would use such filthy methods as poison!"

Shao Heng had coated these Jade Bee Needles with *Jianshouqing*, a poison capable of toppling a late-stage First Realm cultivator, refined primarily from rare mushrooms.

Even though the man swallowed a detoxification pill in time, his vision remained blurred and his body felt limp.

Shao Heng had no patience for his nonsense. Using her spiritual sense to manipulate the Jade Bee Needles, she pierced the throat, heart, eyes, and spine of the partially destroyed wolf demon, ensuring it breathed its last.

Multitasking, she drew her longbow to its limit once more. A mana arrow tore through the air, aimed directly at the male cultivator's head.

"Filthy methods? Whose methods are filthier than yours, you demonic cultivator?"

"Besides, since it works so well, do you really think I don't know if it's 'dirty' or not?"

Without lowering her bow, Shao Heng continued to draw the string. In an instant, dozens of arrows fell upon him like meteors chasing the moon.

[Second-Class Mission: Hunt Tang Dong, a middle-stage First Realm demonic cultivator. Originally a rogue cultivator, after obtaining the low-grade manual *Blood Refinement Technique*, he has killed thirty-seven people, absorbing human blood for cultivation. Disciples accepting this mission must complete the hunt within three days. Reward: 50 contribution points.]

Because his cultivation was at the middle stage of the First Realm, it was designated a second-class mission. However, demonic cultivators were often ruthless in temperament and methods, and because the penalty for failure was extreme, the contribution points for such missions were the highest among all categories.

Shao Heng could sense that this man's aura was approximately four hundred cauldrons. Although he had nearly a hundred cauldrons less mana than her, she still had a chance of victory using her magical tools and immortal arts.

Previously, while hiding in the snowdrift, she had used the Gray Cocoon to suppress all her mana aura, but she hadn't expected Tang Dong's contracted wolf demon to have such a keen nose to sniff out a human scent.

To be cautious, when Shao Heng first began taking second-class missions at the Law Enforcement Pavilion, she deliberately chose collection and miscellaneous tasks in front of others.

However, after realizing the Pavilion maintained strict discipline and that mission information could not be disclosed freely, she began secretly accepting hunting missions.

Because of this, she had only executed a few hunting missions so far and lacked the seasoned experience of an old veteran.

Having been exposed, Shao Heng could only strike with lightning speed. She dared not lower her guard, thinking to herself that she should just shoot Tang Dong into pieces and leave only enough parts to prove his identity.

The exploding arrows mixed blood and snow into a slurry, and suddenly, a bloody shadow lunged toward her from within the mess!

"To survive even that!"

Shao Heng had mastered some of the essence of the [Three Thousand Mile Moon] technique; her body moved like a fleeting shadow, making it difficult to grasp, causing the bloody shadow to miss.

When she looked closely, it was actually a mass of filthy blood, rapidly writhing into a human shape.

While other parts were still blurry, the head clearly revealed Tang Dong's face.

His face was wearing a sinister grin, so eerie that it made Shao Heng's skin crawl.

"A Blood Body from the *Blood Refinement Technique*?" Shao Heng had come to hunt him not just because of the location provided by the sect, but because she had gathered extra information on Tang Dong herself.

She chanted an incantation, calling upon the lunar cold qi born from the moonlight tempering within her yellow sprout.

"Divide the waters,乱 the rivers; seize the cold, settle the soul!"

Aided by the winter snow weather, the power of this incantation was even stronger, instantly freezing the blood man.

Before Shao Heng could draw her bow for a volley, the frozen blood man suddenly exploded, and dozens of bloody shadows darted out from within, fleeing in all directions.

Shao Heng immediately activated the moonlight essence stored in her body, creating three illusory clones. Each clone employed its own methods to intercept the fleeing shadows until she heard a blood shadow let out a piercing scream.

As the illusions dissipated, the woman in snow-white clothes had eyes like a hawk, pouring her mana into the Thousand Strike Bow.

A wisp of black gas rapidly escaped from Shao Heng's fingertips, coiling around the silver arrow like a dragon. Then, this arrow, bolstered by a hundredfold power, shot forth!