Chapter 7: Heart Cleansing Curse
Chapter 7: Heart Cleansing Curse
This deserted village was actually quite safe all around.
Anyway, Li Si did not run into the extremely terrifying evil spirits from legends, nor did he encounter the fallen demon men, let alone the evil god cultists. This was quite normal, because the Floating Cloud Sect group had definitely chosen this deserted village as their refuge for a reason.
So it was convenient for Li Si now. He really went rampant. The weakest anomalous weeds could be killed with one stab of his spear. Even the slightly stronger alien trees could be easily dealt with using one reinforced Demon Slaying Thorn.
In less than two hours, he had taken down thirty-five anomalous weeds and five alien trees. His magic power consumption totaled 150 points. The gray firewood he gained amounted to 295 bundles. Added to what he had before, the total came to 301 bundles. It was quite satisfying.
Of course, his Alienation Contamination Degree smoothly broke through the 38% mark as a result.
To address this, Li Si refined three portions of gray fortune through the Fate Forge. Two of them were added to his Bloodline and Bone Evolution Progress, raising it to 12.2%. Meanwhile, the Alienation Contamination Degree dropped back down to 36%.
As for the last portion of gray fortune, Li Si still used it to reinforce the Dao Technique Evil-Warding Curse.
The reinforcement effect was: activation required 50 points of magic power, base damage plus 400% additional damage.
Finally, Li Si let his magic power recover to the full 100 points. Only then did he take all his spoils and return to the stone house in the deserted village. He had really stolen the show today. According to the fool’s theorem, he was entitled to ask for some reward, such as more powerful Dao Techniques.
That was exactly what happened. When Li Si entered the stone house with lots of supplies, even the Old Madam, who had been resting with her eyes closed, unusually opened her eyes. Although she closed them again right away.
Both Ji Chang and Xu Shen even warmly stood up. While praising him, they subtly divided the supplies Li Si brought back into three equal shares. They each took one share, and the remaining share went to Senior Sister Jiang.
In the dim stone house, only Senior Sister Jiang’s gaze dimmed as she lowered her head, unable to bear watching.
Li Si killing so many anomalous weeds and alien trees today wasn’t really excessive. After all, he had cultivated the Heaven-Turning Scripture to the first level and was a Qi Refining cultivator. With sufficient magic power, such results were hardly worth mentioning.
But the real key point was the accumulation of contamination toxicity. Even their Master, a once-powerful immortal who dominated the nine heavens, was helpless against it.
In her view, Li Si was already living on borrowed time, with at most two or three years left.
“Junior Brother Li, based on your merits today, this senior brother is truly impressed. We’ll help you keep these supplies safe. Don’t worry about cooking; from now on you definitely won’t go hungry!”
Ji Chang patted his chest heartily and promised. Before, they often went hungry because no one wanted to go out hunting. Even though their strength could completely overpower those evil entities, the curses those evil entities cast before dying would slightly increase their contamination toxicity.
Now that Li Si had solved this issue, keeping everyone well-fed was no longer a difficult task.
The most important point was that they had already devised many methods to minimize the contamination toxicity in the food. This way, they could avoid starving, continuously recover magic power. Why wouldn’t they do it?
“Thank you, Senior Brother Ji. I’m not afraid of going hungry. But, I’d like to learn a new Dao Technique.”
Li Si grinned foolishly, his eyes shining with a thirst for knowledge. This was his real goal.
Demon Slaying Thorn was long-ranged and could attack physical entities.
Evil-Warding Curse could be considered warning and defense, capable of attacking non-physical entities. But this still wasn’t enough.
Hearing Li Si’s words, both Ji Chang and Xu Shen were taken aback. They simultaneously looked toward the Old Madam, but she had already closed her eyes, appearing detached from worldly matters.
“Well, alright. Although your Senior Brother Xu and I aren’t highly accomplished, we each have a skilled Dao Technique. Junior Brother Li, you can choose one. But I must warn you: don’t bite off more than you can chew. Your current strength is too low. Mastering too many Dao Techniques is more harmful than beneficial.”
“That’s right. Senior Brother Ji’s words are very reasonable. Junior Brother Li, you must be extremely careful.”
Saying this, Ji Chang and Xu Shen didn’t hesitate at all. They each took out a booklet from their pockets and directly handed them to Li Si. Then, without waiting for his thanks, they each sat cross-legged, closed their eyes, and meditated. It was as if this was just a transaction, settled with no debts or favors, fair to all.
“Thank you, both senior brothers.”
Li Si thanked them happily. At the same time, information appeared before his eyes.
“Acquired Dao Technique ‘Heart Cleansing Curse’. Consume ten portions of gray fortune to master. Requires 30 points of magic power to activate. Effective range one hundred meters. Cast Heart Cleansing Curse on oneself or allied targets to obtain a Mind-cleansing Aura, immune to evil and demonic energies for the time it takes an incense stick to burn. Using it on evil entities can render the target unable to attack for a short period.”
“Acquired Dao Technique ‘Iron Prison Discipline’. Consume ten portions of gray fortune to master. Requires 30 points of magic power to activate. Effective range one hundred meters. Cast on hostile targets to form a restraining iron prison. Depending on the target’s strength, it can restrain for up to three days or at least three seconds.”
It worked!
Li Si was very happy. He carefully stored the two booklets and then cheerfully went to help Senior Sister Jiang with the fire and cooking. Senior Sister Jiang sighed.
“Junior Brother, you helped me fetch water today, that was hard work. Senior Sister here also has a Dao Technique. If you like it, I’ll give it to you.”
After saying this, Senior Sister Jiang also took out a small booklet and handed it to Li Si.
“Thank you, Senior Sister.”
Li Si wouldn’t refuse at all. Although he clearly understood the situation, he was afraid he would disappoint these three senior brothers and sister.
Of course, on the other hand, the Old Madam and her three disciples weren’t fools. They might not see anything in the short term, but over time they would definitely notice something fishy. Before that, he needed to come up with a solution.
“Acquired Dao Technique ‘Palm Thunder’. Consume twenty portions of gray fortune to master. Requires 80 points of magic power to activate. Effective range one hundred meters. Use on hostile targets to deal significant thunder damage. If the target is an evil demon, evil entity, or ghost, damage is doubled.”
Without a doubt, this Senior Sister Jiang was very considerate. However, twenty portions of gray fortune—that was out of the question for now.
After that, the atmosphere in the stone house was harmonious and joyful.
Especially after the food was ready, the Old Madam stopped pretending to be dead, and Ji Chang and Xu Shen stopped meditating. The three of them directly took two-thirds of the food.
The remaining one-third was for the others.
But this time, Li Si got a big bowl. He was extremely hungry, so he didn’t care about the foul smell and terrible taste. He ate it all up.
“Alienation Contamination Degree +0.001%.”
“Magic Power recovered 50 points, effective within one hour.”
Looking at the information that appeared, Li Si felt quite satisfied. These mutant grass molts and aberrant wood husks were quite extraordinary; they could actually restore so much magic power. It was a pity the cooking method was obviously the Old Madam’s secret recipe.
He had clearly seen earlier that when Senior Sister Jiang was cooking, she added over ten different ingredients one after another. Three of those ingredients were obtained from the Old Madam. This also meant that without these three key ingredients, the cooked food would either be highly toxic or its effects greatly reduced.
From this point, the Old Madam was absolutely a seasoned old fox.
After the meal, it was already past noon. The light between heaven and earth finally became much brighter. Even the bizarre cloud layer in the sky became thinner. One could vaguely see thick blood vessels chaotically crisscrossing within those bizarre clouds.
But without a doubt, this was the time of day when the evil god’s power was weakest. Because Xu Shen and Ji Chang both promptly went out of the stone house.
Among them, Xu Shen was responsible for inspecting the formation array at the village entrance.
Ji Chang filled a bag with gray ashes, mixed them with a pungent liquid, and took a small brush to paint the gaps in the stone house.
As for Senior Sister Jiang, she led the little girl and the two little brats out for a walk.
And Zhuwa and Shanwa also came out at this time to bask in the non-existent sun.
Only the Old Madam remained inside the stone house, motionless.
Li Si also wandered around the deserted village. The whole scene was exceptionally harmonious, full of a happy and relaxed atmosphere.
But after only half an hour, the brightness in the sky quickly faded. Ji Chang and Xu Shen decisively went back into the stone house. Senior Sister Jiang also called everyone to return.
Of course, it was fine not to go back, as there was still a long time until nightfall. Li Si took the opportunity to go outside the formation array again. He walked to a spot over two li away from the deserted village. Happily scenes automatically surfaced in his mind. Hmm, ride on my happy little mushroom, take you to see the never-setting sun! What makes me drunk isn’t the wine, but your little dimples!
“Pop”
The red little mushroom arrived as promised…
“Boom!”
Li Si directly cast Evil-Warding Curse twice in a row. But this time there was a surprise.
It wasn’t that he failed to kill the joyous mushroom, but when he cast the first Evil-Warding Curse, the kill message appeared immediately. His second Evil-Warding Curse actually missed.
This meant that after Evil-Warding Curse was reinforced four times, its power was enough to instantly kill the little joyous mushroom.
“So is this a qualitative change brought by quantitative change?”
Li Si was ‘overjoyed’. Wouldn’t this mean saving 50 points of magic power?
The next moment, Li Si was ‘overjoyed’ again.
Then overjoyed again…
“Damn it, after the Evil-Warding Aura formed, the joyous mushroom actually couldn’t sense my joy anymore?”
Li Si had no choice. Just now he had cast two Evil-Warding Curses in a row. The first Evil-Warding Curse directly blasted the little mushroom. But the Evil-Warding Aura formed by the second Evil-Warding Curse would persist on him for half an hour.