"BOOM!!!"

"AAARRRRGGAH!!"

The body vibrating from the painful hiss, the serpent groaned its frustration.

The snake sped up as it gave out a cry. Yun Fei wasn't even fazed this time, he had already gotten used to this pace. He just kept his eyes on his manual and focused on grasping the 5th set of meridians.

The pathways got more and more complex with a rise in their level. There was possibility of Yun Fei making a mistake when he created them himself.

These mistakes were serious. They could cause Qi deviation and more, often deadly problems in other cultivators. "Other cultivators”, to Yun Fei, these were mere inconveniences. Once he realised them, he could easily make corrections.

It was not clear, even to Yun Fei himself how unfair his body was. It was like a blank slate. Yes, it was blank and filling it was a chore, but the gains blew the losses out of the water.

This world is not limited to the human race. There exist many races, with a multitude of exclusive cultivation techniques. These cultivation techniques and methods are normally unusable by other groups or races. However, Yun Fei could practise them.

All of them...

All he had to do was return to his formed meridians, isolate the desired parts of them and force his body to heal them in. Doing this, he would return to a clean slate.

The true complicated process however would be to figure out the structural differences and then accommodating for them inside himself.

After all, these were methods and tricks designed for beings completely alien to the human condition. All this was currently too complicated for Yun Fei, he would have to figure such stuff out in the future.

He was like a rookie painter learning to hold the brush. Once he became a master, the world was his oyster.

Outside,

Duan Xiang drew uneven breaths as he followed the snake from a distance.

The durability of the snake was completely out of his expectations. Even after bearing his constant harassing attacks for more than a day, it kept on moving forward.

It wasn't as if it took his blows lying down though. Well, technically it did since it was a snake and could only lie down. However, the snake also retaliated from time to time, as if trying to swat an annoying fly.

Nonetheless, the snake's attacks only caused Duan Xiang's eyes to redden even more. He felt that this was certainly an opportunity that the heavens had bestowed upon him.

The snake suited his cultivation too well. What he cultivated was the earthen poison scripture. If he could just get the beast core of this snake, he would have a chance to progress further than the nascent soul stage in his life.

He was all in. Even if doing this, led him to be half dead later, he was going to be half dead with a completely suited beast core and a smile on his face.

Cultivation is endless but time isn't… it can’t help but pass.

Yun Fei had his senses on full alert even while cultivating. However, he was still taken by surprise as a veritable army of worms assaulted him. Appearing from within a larger capillary they immediately attacked him.

They were not particularly strong, but they came in numbers. Hundreds of little suckers attached themselves to him.

He never expected to be attacked in a place like this. So they overwhelmed him for some time before Yun Fei crushed them all in a surge of irritation.

They didn't have much lethality to speak of except their ability to suck out blood rapidly.

A thing that Yun Fei had found out when he was fighting against the wave of worms was the restriction that was placed on him since he had entered inside the snake.

From the moment he had been swallowed, he felt a little suffocated. It was as if his body was wrapped around with small chains.

Nonetheless, it wasn't enough to significantly affect his movement or his digging capabilities.

However, when he tried to move according to his will, in rapid succession, as he fought against the worms. He found out that this mysterious pressure had affected his co-ordination.

Still, the worms were crushed because the gap between them wasn't so easy to fill.

His leg lashed out like a death-god’s scythe claiming the lives of the sickly slugs. They burst apart with a disgusting squelch, as Yun Fei landed blows left and right.

He imagined that it would be quite hard for people who couldn't see anything, on top of being attacked by these worms.

Yun Fei felt thankful that the snake was injured. He felt that if the snake was at its full power, it would constantly emit the monstrous pressure that had emanated when it struggled with the heron.

Just that pressure alone had frozen everybody. If that pressure was intact when Yun Fei was inside, he was very sure that he wouldn't be able to move even a step. Directly dissolving into bubbles in the acid pool.

'These must be parasites that live inside this snake. Hmmm...

Maybe they get culled by the snake when they reach a certain threshold.' Thought Yun Fei composing himself.

He knew that masters at higher levels could do many mysterious things and even beasts cannot be underestimated.

So these parasites probably weren't too much of an inconvenience, or they would be eliminated.

'Now that I think about, am I not also a parasite for the past two days? I drink blood and cultivate using the energy from it.

It's good, I'll try to suck as many benefits as I can from this snake.'

In the past day, his digging progress had slowed down. As he reached to outside from the inside, the flesh of the snake had started getting tougher and firmer. The normal daggers didn't have much of an effect anymore.

Since he didn't want to waste Qi, he only used the black dagger and focused on cutting through. The flesh getting harder to cut was a good sign, Yun Fei also knew that he was gaining ground.

There was no way that he could keep digging till he reached the scales. However, getting in a better position would help when the decisive moment arrived.

At least until he encountered the dense layer of Qi that he sensed ahead, the environment would keep improving.

A cyan streak cut through the air. It was a woman in azure robes. Her face was masked but she exuded grace and sharpness from her being.

Her speed was much faster than Duan Xiang and she was rapidly catching up to him.

Nobody had ever seen her face before and nobody would ever recognise her if she took off the mask. However, her wooden mask was considerably famous.

Almost every cultivator who could be considered even a little well informed would know of the lady in the rustic wooden mask. She would appear near the best opportunities, be it an inheritance ground or an ancient relic.

Capable of fighting above her level, she could be found battling demon beasts or hunting bounties. A popular figure in the cultivation world of the Skyrend continent.

Although she was following in the footsteps of Duan Xiang, her thoughts were completely different from him. She didn't think it would be easy to face this beast.

'This beast is too powerful. Its level is completely above mine. Winning against it would be almost completely impossible.'

She thought as she felt the residue of the aura left behind by the tussle between Duan Xiang and the serpent.

However, even though she held some reservations, she still followed the trail with rapid speed.

Her personality in this regard could be called completely opposite to someone like He Weiyuan. She truly liked opportunities and if she had a chance to gain something, she wouldn't hesitate to try her luck.

She just convinced herself to be very careful and to always leave a way out for herself. This time, it was a truly dangerous endeavour.

Focused on attacking the snake, Duan Xiang failed to notice the eerily quiet figure approaching him.

Upon his forearms were 3 dark halos. Wrapping around his arm like bangles, they pulsed with strength as they periodically flew out to attack the critically injured parts of the serpent.

Duan Xiang finally felt something behind him. Startled, he launched one of the halos towards the azure figure gaining on him. A frown creased his brow when he saw the brown coloured mask.

He instantly recognised who it was. After all, he had encountered her before. Just as he identified her, his mood instantly soured.

His attack had crumbled before a single slash from her. With the flash of the the sword, the halo dissipated, bisected multiple times.

As soon as she caught up with him. Duan Xiang's expression which had been a little cold instantly crumbled and he voiced out.

"Miss Shui Ling, congratulations on breaking through your cultivation level, Forgive me for the attack, you started me."

She was known to be competitive, he had seen it with his own eyes too. If they were on the same cultivation level, he wouldn't relent.

He had planned on telling her to leave. Since it was him who had been beating this snake up for so long. He had put in a lot of work and it would be impolite of her to interfere.

Although, He wanted to treat her coldly, his plan had fallen through when he saw her strength.

He wasn't a match for her when they were of the same cultivation level. Now that she had progressed to the middle layer of nascent soul he had abysmal chances against her.

His heart welled with bitterness whenever he saw such immensely talented people. They had entered the nascent soul stage at approximately the same time but she took off like a shooting star, widely renowned for her strength.

While, he was just a no name old man, people wouldn't even bother thinking about. Now, she had even left him behind in cultivation.

No expression could be discerned from Shui Ling's wooden mask. She just nodded and replied.

"I'm grateful for your kind words. I hope mister Duan also has further progress in his cultivation."

Duan Xiang was actually surprised that she had bothered remembering about him. He ignored the fact that with a cultivator's memory, it was more of a task to forget trivial information than remember it.

Shui Ling had already figured out the situation as soon as she had caught up. She also understood just how much this serpent meant to Duan Xiang.

However, she felt that he didn't understand the severity of the situation. He had severely underestimated this beast.

Nonetheless, it was none of her business. She was just here to take the maximum benefits she could.

"Mister Duan, I feel that this beast still has a lot of life left in it. How about we co-operate in hunting it and then split the benefits?

Doing that, would be safer for both of us and we wouldn't have to risk as much."

As he heard this, Duan Xiang's face grew serious once more. He was just about to try and negotiate but before the words could come out of his mouth, Shui Ling spoke once again.

"Fellow Cultivator, I know what you're anxious about. However, you needn’t worry.

I know just what this beast's core means to you. I wouldn't demand something so excessive for my cooperation when you have already begun tiring the monster out for some

time.

You can have the core and the scales and I can take the fangs and the other parts of the body. Consequently, you will have to fight the monster in the close range and I will attack it from a little further away.

You should know that even a cornered rat can bite the cat and what we are dealing with here is still a demonic beast. Being a bit more careful can never hurt."

Hearing this, Duan Xiang breathed a sigh of relief. He thought that he would have to engage in hard negotiation, offering a lot of benefits just for her to leave him to hunt the snake alone.

Instead, she was actually going to give the core and even the scales to him. While helping him take down the beast too. It was not as if he wasn't worried about his safety. This arrangement would truly be the most profitable in this scenario.

"Since you are willing to concede today, This Duan owes you a favour."