Chapter 63: Rewards (Part 9)

Su Chen retrieved his blade, then sat on the ground, sapped of all his energy.

While he had won the battle, he had also sustained some heavy injuries.

Ulrich’s body began to release bits of starlike light. Those were dots of Origin Energy.

Su Chen hesitated for a moment, but still decided to raise his hand.

This battle had taught Su Chen the value of strength.

Without enough strength, one could encounter dangers at any time. This made it so that he no longer cared about where the Origin Energy dots originated from. Origin Energy was Origin Energy, and it was pure in the first place. It did not depend on the race.

At this time, the metal-eating bug had finished eating the three pieces of starsilver and returned.

Su Chen watched it with vigilance. He did not know if this bug would go crazy upon discovering that Ulrich had died.

However, he was relieved very quickly.

The bug, which seemed vicious outwardly, used its head to prod Ulrich. Upon discovering that there was no response, it actually just walked to the side and went to sleep, completely ignoring Su Chen.

This made Su Chen feel somewhat speechless.

Since the giant beetle was not interested in him, Su Chen also needed to rest.

After realigning his bones and applying medicine, Su Chen lay on the ground, resting peacefully.

As he rested, he began to replay the battle in his mind.

Old man Ulrich had six to seven - or even more - Origin Skills. His strength was not to be taken lightly. There were three reasons why he had been able to kill Ulrich. Firstly, he had an advantage in equipment. Five Origin Tools gave him a nontrivial increase in strength. The old man only had one magic staff, and very clearly it was just a common amplification staff, amplifying the intensity of fire-type Origin Skills. However, the Origin Skills that he controlled were not all fire-type. This was one of the reasons why the old man had lost. Secondly, ancient Arcana techniques were not easy to chain together nor meant for close-quarters combat. As soon as Su Chen drew near, it was difficult for Ulrich to hit him. In addition, the space in their environment was limited, so Ulrich wasn’t able to dodge well, which gave Su Chen the opportunity to attack. Thirdly, Iron Cliff’s presence and the giant beetle’s lack of maturity had given away Ulrich’s final opportunity.

However, the main reason that he had been able to win was because of the metal-eating bug’s weakness.

In reality, Su Chen should have recognized the giant beetle’s thirst for metals from the very beginning. However, his attention had been captured by Ulrich, so he had overlooked this point. He hadn’t thought of it until later.

If he hadn’t thought of this idea, then the one dying would have been him.

From this, one could easily see that in battle, it was incredibly important to preserve a clear mind.

Because his mind had been clear, he had quickly discovered the weakness of the giant beetle. Because his mind had been clear, he had used Soul Eye at the most critical moment, which prevented Ulrich from turning the tables on him. Powerful strength needed to be paired with a clear mind; these were essential conditions for success.

This was what Su Chen had understood after his battle, and was also the requirements that Su Chen had placed on himself for the future. Every time he battled, he would need to remind himself of this. He would review his mistakes and correct his progress.

After resting for an unknown period of time, the broken bones in Su Chen’s chest finally began to hurt less.

He stood up again, then walked towards Ulrich.

It wasn’t until this moment that he finally saw Ulrich’s appearance the most clearly.

The old man’s face was filled with wrinkles. He was incredibly old, and he was frighteningly skinny. No wonder he possessed no strength. Ancient Arcana had no techniques for cultivating the physique. They only studied the intricacies of Origin Skills themselves, and this was reflected in the old man’s appearance.

Compared to humankind, their eyes were blue. This was one way to discern the difference between the Arcana race and humankind. However, he never saw that second pair of eyes; perhaps it was just a rumor.

Upon taking away the magic staff, Su Chen began to search Ulrich’s body.

There was absolutely nothing. No pouch, no storage ring.

This made Su Chen feel extremely disappointed.

But after thinking about it again, he realized that Ulrich could not have brought nothing with him, especially if he was attempting to train a metal-eating bug.

Unless......

Su Chen turned his head around to look at something.

Ulrich had walked out from that dark area off to the distance.

He first walked over to Iron Cliff. Upon seeing that he wasn’t seriously injured - he had only fainted - Su Chen picked up the crystal lamp and walked into the distance. The yellow light scattered the darkness, and Su Chen very quickly saw that there was another cave not far away from where he was.

It seemed as if that cave was Ulrich’s home. All of his belongings were inside.

There was a lot of stuff inside the cave.

Apart from items necessary for survival, what attracted Su Chen the most was a large workbench.

The workbench was covered in all kinds of strange vials and jars, as well as a few notes that recorded the experiments.

Su Chen carelessly picked one up to look at. On it was recorded the way to tame and raise the metal-eating bug.

“So this thing is called a metal-eating bug.” It wasn’t until now that Su Chen knew what this strange beast was called.

In any case, the large bug wasn’t bothering him, so Su Chen hung the crystal lantern up on the wall and began to read Ulrich’s writings.

The writings were very messy. Some recorded what Ulrich had learned from his experience, some were recalling his memories. Su Chen felt very confused initially, but as he read book after book, Su Chen began to understand.

Ulrich truly was a remnant of the Arcana Race.

However, after the Arcana Race had fallen into ruin, they were not allowed to exist by the other races. Thus, even though he was a remnant of the Arcana Race, Ulrich did not have much of a legacy. In his early life, he had followed his parents while they wandered, attempting to hide from the pursuit of other races. However, in the end, he was still a remnant of the Arcana Race. Perhaps using those connections, Ulrich had obtained a book that recorded ancient Arcana techniques.

Instead of transmission pearls, the information here was written down!

Su Chen paid attention to this point.

He searched the room thoroughly, finally discovering a sheepskin scroll hidden in the corner. The sheepskin scroll was ancient. Even though steps had been taken to preserve it, it still looked like touching it would cause it to fragment.

Su Chen very carefully opened it. However, he saw that it was written using an ancient Arcana script, and his heart immediately sank.

Although he had studied an ancient Arcana text with Tang Zhen before, it was for a short duration, so the amount that he had learned was limited. He estimated that even if Tang Zhen himself was here, it might still be difficult to translate it.

Cultivating was not like other things. A small mistake could result in serious consequences.

There was nothing Su Chen could do. He first put the sheepskin to the side, then continued to examine Ulrich’s writings.

According to what was written here, after Ulrich obtained the sheepskin, he began to cultivate according to what was written on it. However, because the Arcana Race was not accepted by the other races, Ulrich’s cultivation environment was pretty bad because he was always running away or wandering. Most of his time was spent hiding or evading. This was also why his cultivation layer was so low, even though he was quite old.

He did not have a master to guide him, nor did he have the appropriate cultivation environment or resources. For him to cultivate to his current state while relying only on a sheepskin manual was already quite good.

Apart from Arcana techniques, the sheepskin also recorded an Arcana Life-Altering Technique.

The Arcana Life-Altering Technique was how the Arcana Race used their special ancient Arcana techniques combined with their knowledge to change the lives of other life-forms, turning them into their slaves.. This method existed when the Arcana Kingdom was created and became extremely popular. However, this may also have been the cause for the Arcana Kingdom to fall into ruin.

Because of their unscrupulous changing and utilizing other life-forms, as well as the pain and bitter suffering lifeforms of other races endured, they finally enraged all the great races. Once the Origin Beasts dealt a serious blow to the Arcana Kingdom, all the other Intelligent Races allied together and toppled the Arcana Kingdom.

One could say that of the countless sins that the Arcana Race had committed, life-altering would be the number one sin.

Regardless, this conscienceless method also made the races reevaluate their understanding of life. Afterwards, they began to create more cultivation methods and skills that were easier to implement. This would also have great value towards improving their society.

Ulrich did not dare to use the Arcana Race’s Life-Altering Technique, and he could not use beasts. The Beast Emperor would use a long-range call to awaken the abilities of beasts outside of their territory, preventing the beast race from being blindly used by others. Thus, all he could choose to use were bugs.

Ulrich had unintentionally encountered these metal-eating bugs while he was wandering. They were extremely hard to discover and usually only the size of a fingernail.

Ulrich had basically killed all of the metal-eating bugs that he had encountered. Through a large numbers of experiments and care, he had finally created this metal-eating bug.

However, there were clearly flaws in his experimentation.

Ulrich originally had hoped that he could use the metal-eating bug’s love for metals to train a powerful meat shield. While he had accomplished this, and the super metal-eating bug that he had trained was truly frighteningly strong, and it could continue to raise its potential by eating more metal, the main issue was that this metal-eating bug clearly did not like doing battle.

Its lazy nature made it so that it hated doing battle. Its ferocious mandibles didn’t like picking up anything except metal ore. Even if people were to hit it, it would only whimper and retreat. In any case, its shell was so thick that blows to it didn’t hurt.

Ulrich tried to think of many ways to address this issue, finally coming up with a way to increase the metal-eating bug’s battle capacity.

It was at this time when Su Chen appeared.

In the end, a few pieces of pure starsilver had quenched the metal-eating bug’s fighting spirit.

“No wonder......” Su Chen said to himself.

No wonder the metal-eating bug didn’t try to get revenge after its owner died, instead running to the corner and going to sleep. It didn’t enjoy battling in the first place.

Su Chen originally planned on figuring out how to kill it after he recovered, but now he gave up on this idea.

Su Chen was very clear that without Ulrich’s training, the metal-eating bug’s true nature would very quickly take over, and it would not be dangerous to humans. Since that was the case, there was no longer any need to try and deal with it.

After retrieving the sheepskin scroll, Su Chen continued to flip through, seeing if there was anything else he could gain.

However, apart from a bug pouch, he didn’t see anything else. The old man had spent all his resources on cultivating and training metal-eating bugs. The bug pouch was used to raise metal-eating bugs. These bugs could enter a state of hibernation in the pouch and could survive on very little food. Its value was roughly worth that of a common grade storage ring, so Su Chen retrieved it as well.

Su Chen thought for a moment, then took the old man’s experimental logs and his instruments as well.

These writings were the accumulation of all the years of experience this old man had gained. It was everything that he knew.

The current age prioritized items and cultivation as the most important, and was not particularly fond of ancient Arcana techniques, which were “crooked” pathways. However, Su Chen had studied under Tang Zhen, and he had personally witnessed the metal-eating bug’s strength. Thus, he had no aversions to knowledge.

After all, who could know whether or not these could be used to increase his own strength? Now that bloodlines were valued for strength, both the bloodline extractor and bloodline medicines were all products of knowledge.