Chapter 48: Walking Alone

At this moment, he had only a few spiritual talismans left on his person. In terms of combat, he held no greater advantage than other rogue cultivators; in fact, compared to those who had been cultivating for ten or twenty years, Lu Xiaotian was still inferior to them in the proficiency and application of spells. The Shuyuan Formation was merely a defensive formation, capable only of luring enemies into its trap, which gave it significant limitations. It was not suitable for direct combat.

After much deliberation, Lu Xiaotian concluded that his only temporary option was to refine the Shadow Ants left behind by the large-framed怪人 (freak). Only then could he gain an extra measure of self-protection within the peril-filled Wangyue Mountains.

With a thought from his divine sense, a large, winged head-ant, resembling a flying little green ball, fluttered out of the mouth of the gourd. Suddenly sensing the aura of an outsider, it immediately lunged toward Lu Xiaotian.

"Overestimating your strength." Lu Xiaotian flicked a wind blade with his hand. With a *thwack*, the Shadow Ant slammed into the wall of the tree hollow and fell. However, Lu Xiaotian had not used much force; the Shadow Ant instantly took flight again, flying toward this stranger with the intent to bite the villain several times. But how could Lu Xiaotian allow this tiny insect to have its way?

A series of cracking sounds followed. The Shadow Ant was knocked down by wind blades time and time again. Realizing the enemy before it was invincible, it turned to fly out of the tree hollow.

Escaping would not be so easy. The corners of Lu Xiaotian's mouth curled up as he slightly curled his fingers. A whirlwind formed in his palm, and a massive suction force pulled the head-ant back. After repeating this process until the head-ant lacked even the strength to crawl, it finally showed signs of submission—though Lu Xiaotian could sense the resentment hidden within that submission. After all, it had been raised by the large-framed freak for some time; to command it freely, repeated refinement was necessary. The freak had used his own essence blood, and now, with his death, the mental imprints on these Shadow Ants were gradually weakening and would completely vanish before long. Lu Xiaotian had no intention of using his own essence blood to nourish these ants, but as a second-best option, using some demon beast blood supplemented with Beast Spirit Pills would suffice.

It was two hours later when he finished refining the remaining head-ants in the black gourd. Having endured several heart-pounding battles and working for another two hours inside the tree hollow, Lu Xiaotian was physically and mentally exhausted. He fell into a deep sleep within the hollow.

Two days later, beneath a towering tree in a certain desolate mountain, a demon rabbit was covered in small green flying ants. The rabbit rolled on the ground in agony before quickly losing its strength, only to be sliced open by a youth in green and a blade, allowing the green ants to feast upon it.

Five days later, a Blood-Sucking Demon Cat was devoured by dozens of small green ants led by several head-ants.

Ten days later, by an unknown stream with clear waters, a faint scent of blood drifted upon the current. Had a careful person searched thoroughly, they would have certainly discovered a pile of demon crocodile bones in the grass by the stream, with some scraps of meat still clinging to them.

"Seeking death!" Lu Xiaotian snorted. He reached out to draw several head-ants toward him, and a ball of flame erupted in his palm—it was the Primordial Yang Fire formed from his essence, capable of melting metal and forging stone.

Scared by the Primordial Yang Fire, the head-ants flew away in panic. In an instant, they assumed a posture of submission toward Lu Xiaotian, not daring to misbehave again.

Lu Xiaotian had spent most of his energy these past few days on refining the Shadow Ants. After more than ten days of effort, constantly removing the mental imprints left by the large-framed freak and feeding them the flesh and blood of demon beasts, he had temporarily completed his control over the head-ants. However, Lu Xiaotian discovered that after consuming the essence blood of blood-sucking demon beasts, the ants' temperaments became more ferocious. The backlash he had just witnessed was the result of these head-ants having gorged themselves on the essence blood of the demon crocodile. But how could Lu Xiaotian allow these spirit insects to succeed so easily?

"Hmm?" Just as he was about to teach the head-ants another lesson, Lu Xiaotian suddenly heard an unusual sound. Someone was coming.

Lu Xiaotian's heart tightened, and he quickly hid his figure among the weeds. During these past few days, while refining the Shadow Ants, he had been carefully avoiding other cultivator teams. After all, he was currently alone; encountering another team could easily lead to him being surrounded and killed, making escape nearly impossible once cornered.

Now, he mostly chose small paths where cultivator activity was low. Whenever he found scattered spirit stones, storage bags, or the corpses of other cultivators on the road, Lu Xiaotian would choose to either return the way he came or take a detour. Such situations were mostly traps set by other cultivator teams, intended to lure victims for plunder.

Some experienced rogue cultivators were not easily deceived. However, many novices who had just left Wangyue City were short on resources, or there were some arrogant cultivators who refused to believe in such tricks and insisted on trying their luck. These people often met miserable ends.

Even with such caution, Lu Xiaotian had nearly been surrounded by several rogue cultivators. That was four days ago, when he spotted a stalk of Green Fish Grass, a primary ingredient for refining Essence Pills. He had checked the surroundings several times but failed to find any other cultivators. Thus, Lu Xiaotian emboldened himself to harvest the grass. Little did he know that as he was harvesting it, a black crow flew up from the grass about ten yards away, flapping its wings. At first, he was merely suspicious, as it was just an ordinary black crow, not even a spirit beast. Such birds were common among the high mountains and ridges.

However, a shocking situation quickly unfolded. After the black crow flew up, it let out a few caws, and four or five gray figures simultaneously began to flank him from several miles away.

Lu Xiaotian was incensed. Someone had actually trained such an ordinary bird for their own use. In the past at the Thunder Blade Sect, there were specialized pigeon trainers, and some powerful ones could train eagles. But those were the methods of commoners; among rogue cultivators, he had almost never heard of anyone spending energy on such things.

If it had been a spirit bird or a demon beast, Lu Xiaotian likely would have detected it during his earlier search. But an ordinary black crow was everywhere in the wild, and he hadn't thought in that direction at all. It was this very oversight that led him into the trap. To kill for wealth, these people truly used every means necessary; even cultivators would train ordinary black crows to serve as their eyes and ears. Anyone else would have fallen for it.

In his anger, Lu Xiaotian directly threw out a small fireball, burning the black crow to ash, and then fled for his life.

There were opponents coming from several directions, but he was lucky; he encountered a black-faced cultivator at the third level of Qi Refinement. Lu Xiaotian directly unleashed several spells and then released his ant swarm, adopting a life-or-death combat stance. Seeing that the cultivator's cultivation was far lower than his own, the black-faced man turned to retreat in terror. In a narrow encounter, retreating out of fear often leads to a swifter death. The black-faced cultivator was sliced in half by Lu Xiaotian's wind blades. Lu Xiaotian took the man's storage bag as well, though it only contained a mere six or seven low-grade spirit stones and a few worthless spirit herbs. The other cultivators who were flanking him jumped in rage, but seeing Lu Xiaotian's retreating figure, they were helpless and could only swallow their bitter resentment.

After this experience, Lu Xiaotian became a hundred times more cautious; his alertness was far higher than before, and he could hear the slightest movement from a great distance.