However, it was a pity that real life didn't have the option to load a save.
Despite feeling a myriad of grievances, Mo Fan could only follow Zhao Ziwei—whose face was covered in black ash and who was holding a basin of highly explosive "Pyroblast Mud"—stumbling deep into Hundred Forging Peak.
Along the way, Mo Fan gained an extremely profound, physical understanding of the word "au naturel."
How was this a blessed land for cultivation? To put it nicely, it was "waiting to be rebuilt."
To put it bluntly, it was a barren wilderness that looked like it had been chewed over by tens of thousands of wild dogs and struck by lightning countless times.
There were no spirit cranes crying here, only a few mutated old crows occasionally sweeping past with hoarse, eerie squawks. There were no exotic flowers or rare herbs, only unknown toxic vines radiating a pungent smell of sulfur.
Everywhere he looked, there were bottomless abandoned mine shafts, gigantic crushed stones scattered haphazardly...
And scorched black craters left by generations of troublemakers wreaking havoc. Eerie green smoke even seeped out from some of the craters.
"We're here! This is my cave dwelling!"
After walking for about the time it takes an incense stick to burn, Zhao Ziwei stopped excitedly on a flat mountainside.
Mo Fan had expected to see a deep, hidden, quiet cave—perhaps simple, but at least possessing an immortal aura.
However, when he raised his head, the scene that greeted his eyes mercilessly refreshed the lower limits of his expectations once again.
It was a massive perimeter wall forcibly stacked together using raw stones as huge as small hills, in an extremely brutal and aesthetically devoid manner.
Every raw stone bore extremely violent cutting marks, as if they had been forcefully chewed off by some giant beast.
Looking in through the wide gap that lacked a gate, a few cyan-tiled houses were extremely hastily erected in the yard, barely enough to block the wind and rain.
And the entire yard was simply a super-massive heavy industry scrap recycling station!
Mountains of various ores, spirit crystal waste, and metal semi-finished products that Mo Fan completely couldn't understand—emitting bizarre and unstable spiritual fluctuations—were piled up like small hills here and there.
Some scrapped magical artifact wreckage was even oozing colorful, eerie juices.
The air was permeated with a strong smell of metal rust and gunpowder that made one's throat dry.
"Ahem, well, usually it's just me, so it's a bit messy. Mainly because I need to grab materials at any time for my research, so piling them in the yard is convenient."
Zhao Ziwei seemed a bit embarrassed.
He scratched his bird's nest of hair, which still carried a scorched smell, and swaggered into the center of the yard.
"Brother Xiaoqi, you make do here for tonight. I'll clear a spot and set up a bed for you right now!"
Saying this, he walked over to a massive scrap iron ore blocking the door of the tiled house, weighing thousands of pounds.
The scrap iron was still covered in dried black gel and looked incredibly heavy.
The ensuing scene caused the pupils of Mo Fan, standing at the yard gate, to constrict abruptly, his breathing stalling in an instant.
He saw that Zhao Ziwei didn't even catch his breath, nor did he form any telekinesis spell seals.
He merely reached out one hand casually, steadily supporting the bottom of that massive scrap iron that was three or four times larger than his entire person.
"Alley-oop!"
Zhao Ziwei gave a soft shout. The muscles on his seemingly thin arm bulged instantly.
That thousands-of-pounds solid scrap iron was actually lifted over his head single-handedly, like a weightless hollow rubber ball, and then tossed casually into a corner over ten meters away!
BOOM—!
The giant scrap iron smashed into the ground, emitting a tooth-aching, muffled thud.
The entire yard shook violently, kicking up a cloud of dust. The hard ground nearby was directly smashed into a large crater, spiderweb-like cracks spreading outward in all directions.
But that wasn't all.
Zhao Ziwei clapped the dust off his hands, then swiped his waist storage bag.
With a sharp CLANG, a pitch-black, blunt greatsword—as wide as a door panel—appeared in his hand.
The blade was covered in dense grooves and dark red rust, as if it had drunk the blood of countless Spirit Beasts. With a single glance, one could tell it was heavy to the extreme.
But in Zhao Ziwei's hand, this giant sword was as light as a leaf fluttering in the wind.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
He flicked his wrist gently. The door-panel greatsword carved out an extremely terrifying sword flourish in mid-air, carrying a fierce gale.
The several thick logs piled nearby, requiring two people to hug, were instantly sliced into a dozen flat, smooth wooden planks of uniform thickness under this airtight, effortless sword light. The cuts were as smooth as mirrors.
"Done! We have bed boards, just make do and sleep!" Zhao Ziwei shouldered the greatsword, revealing a mouthful of white teeth, smiling heartlessly.
Meanwhile, Mo Fan, standing outside the yard gate, subconsciously swallowed hard. He only felt a chill run down his back, cold sweat sliding down his spine.
"Is this... the Foundation Establishment stage?"
Mo Fan looked at the thousands of pounds of scrap iron tossed away effortlessly, and looked at the terrifying sword Qi that sliced wood like mud with absolute ease, his heart churning with stormy waves.
Zhao Ziwei had only entered the sect four or five years ago, and was now at the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment.
In the cultivation world, there was a widely circulated and extremely cruel old saying:
Qi Condensation stage fights are, to put it bluntly, just mortals using spells for high-level melee combat.
But reaching the Foundation Establishment stage—that was an extremely cruel watershed!
That was a realm where the body had been thoroughly cleansed and reformed by the spiritual Qi of heaven and earth, shedding the mortal clay. That was truly one in a hundred, the mark of completely drawing a line separating oneself from mortals!
During Mo Fan's previous secluded bitter cultivation, relying on the inhumane hammering of the Iron Bone Stage and the Body Forging Record, his Qi and blood and physical strength could indeed clash head-on with peak Qi Condensation cultivators.
He could even hold an advantage without using spells.
But looking at it now, in front of a true Foundation Establishment cultivator...
Even someone like Zhao Ziwei—a "problem child" and "thorn" exiled to the abandoned mine mountain for peeping—that bit of physical strength Mo Fan took so much pride in was completely and utterly inadequate!
The opponent didn't even need to use any flashy spells.
Relying purely on the formidable physical foundation baptized by Foundation Establishment spiritual energy, he could single-handedly crush Mo Fan just like that scrap iron!
"This is a fucking dimensional strike..."
The gaze under Mo Fan's hat became incomparably solemn. An unprecedented sense of crisis enveloped his heart.
"If it weren't for the Necromancer System acting as a safety net, with Mo Yan and Summon No. 004 holding the fort, I, a waste Spirit Root without even Qi Sense, probably wouldn't even qualify to be high-level cannon fodder in front of these heaven's chosen."
But this strong disparity in strength didn't make Mo Fan feel discouraged.
On the contrary, it acted like an extremely sharp awl, piercing ruthlessly into his heart, making him completely put away that previous "once I sneak into the inner sect, I can sit back and relax" mentality of camping.
He clearly realized that entering the inner sect wasn't the finish line, but the starting point of another cruel meat grinder.
Any random sweeper or exiled psycho pulled from here might have the hard stats to one-shot him. The true, cruel competition had only just begun!
"A single person's physical strength has its limits, but I must get stronger..."
"I must unlock more computing power (CPU) as soon as possible, dig up higher-level corpses from the graveyards, and build a more massive, more terrifying Undead Legion!"
"Quantity and tactics are my only way out!"
That sense of urgency burned fiercely in Mo Fan's heart.