Chapter 35: A Special Legacy
Zhang Peng looked at Chen Ming, who was covered in blood, thought for a moment, then pulled a small box from his robes and tossed it toward him.
Chen Ming caught the box, opened it, and found a pitch-black medicinal pill inside. Waves of medicinal fragrance drifted from it.
"This is the Xuan Shui Pill from the Xuanming Sect. I traded for it from someone over the past few days. It should be somewhat useful to you. Although it probably will not improve you by much, the Disciple of Zhang Peng should not be so poor that he cannot even afford a single medicinal pill."
"The effect of the Xuan Shui Pill is to wash away impurities from the body, strengthen the body and meridians, and thereby increase a Spirit Master's cultivation speed to a certain degree. For a Spirit Master with relatively poor Innate Spirit Power, it is roughly equivalent to raising their Innate Spirit Power by 1 rank. But for someone like you, who already has Innate full Spirit Power, the effect is minor."
"Still, it will definitely strengthen your physique and raise your Spirit Power a little."
"Thank you, Teacher!" Chen Ming exclaimed excitedly as he looked at the Xuan Shui Pill inside the box.
Even if the improvement was not huge, it was still better than nothing.
"Just take it now, then come back to the Holy Spirit Cult when you're done," Zhang Peng said with a wave of his hand, clearly not treating it as anything important.
Theoretically, with his status as the Disciple of a Super Douluo, Chen Ming should have enjoyed a great many resources.
But in reality, Zhang Peng felt that aside from tossing him a few Spirit Beast corpses and getting him an identity token, he had not really done much for him.
Although Evil Spirit Masters had always been highly efficient in making use of resources, and Spirit Beast corpses were already valuable resources in themselves, Zhang Peng still felt somewhat ashamed that he had not provided even medicinal pills or medicinal baths. It simply did not match his status.
Watching Chen Ming activate his Martial Soul and swallow the medicinal pill, causing oily black impurities to seep from his body, Zhang Peng covered his nose, dug a pit in the ground, then produced a vat of water from somewhere and poured it into the pit, telling Chen Ming to wash himself properly.
For ordinary Spirit Masters, bathing in the wild was usually no big deal. But Chen Ming's Martial Soul made his whole body toxic. If he washed directly in a natural water source, he would inevitably poison and kill a large number of weak Spirit Beasts.
After roughly washing himself in the water pit, Chen Ming changed into the spare clothes Zhang Peng had given him and began to assess his own condition.
Thanks to the Xuan Shui Pill, combined with the recent devouring, Chen Ming's Spirit Power rank had risen by 1 level, reaching Rank 18. Although the overall quality of his Spirit Power had not increased much after refinement, his recovery ability had clearly improved.
As for his body, Chen Ming could feel that it had become lighter. Many of the impurities he had originally carried, along with those accumulated during cultivation, had been removed through this cleansing, giving his whole body a sense of harmony. The toughness and width of his meridians had also increased by about half a step.
He already possessed Innate full Spirit Power. His talent was already at the limit for conventional Spirit Masters. For a Spirit Master with talent as high as his, the Xuan Shui Pill's ability to improve innate talent would naturally be less obvious. The fact that it could still increase the toughness of his meridians by half a step already exceeded Chen Ming's expectations somewhat.
Zhang Peng placed a hand on Chen Ming's body and examined him for a moment, then nodded and brought him back deep underground to the Holy Spirit Cult.
Since Chen Ming had already passed the beginner stage, had supplemented his common knowledge as a Spirit Master, and had performed beyond Zhang Peng's expectations, Zhang Peng planned to guide him continuously for the next period of time.
He first tested Chen Ming's foundational knowledge and discovered that Chen Ming had learned everything extremely solidly, no different from a child of a noble family who had studied basic knowledge for several years.
Furthermore, while mastering knowledge about Evil Spirit Masters, Chen Ming had also maintained restraint. He did not possess the madness or indifference toward ordinary human lives that was common among many Evil Spirit Masters. Instead, he classified humans and Spirit Beasts as different species, choosing only to use Spirit Beasts as nourishment and never humans, no matter what.
This point greatly pleased Zhang Peng, because Zhang Peng himself had always maintained the same bottom line. Seeing that Chen Ming could preserve his original heart instead of letting his own thoughts drift, Zhang Peng naturally felt satisfied.
However, after only a few days of teaching, Zhang Peng and Chen Ming fell into an awkward situation.
Zhang Peng simply had no talent for teaching. When Chen Ming had not yet grasped the fundamentals, he could not understand what Zhang Peng was saying. Now that he had already mastered the basics, Chen Ming finally realized why he had not been able to understand before.
The purification of Spirit Power and the concept of a Spirit Core, things that were only barely touched upon at the level of a high rank Spirit Douluo, were not things that a newcomer in the Spirit Master realm should be learning at all. The influence of the Martial Soul True Body on a Martial Soul was something even farther away from him.
The closest subject to Chen Ming was knowledge concerning the influence of Spirit Beast Spirits on the Martial Soul...
But to put it simply, the entry threshold for that subject was Spirit King. And that was merely Zhang Peng's own understanding from when he had been a Spirit King. For an ordinary Evil Spirit Master, being able to touch that subject at the Spirit Saint realm would already be considered quite good.
There were only so many low level problems, and Chen Ming had already memorized them all. There were countless high level problems, but they were too far removed from Chen Ming's current realm. Moreover, because their Martial Souls and cultivation paths were so different, learning many of them would not even be useful to Chen Ming.
Zhang Peng said, "These are the characteristics one must pay attention to when controlling a beast spirit."
Chen Ming replied, "Teacher, my Martial Soul cannot control a beast spirit."
Zhang Peng said, "Fine. Then let us talk about how to maintain the state of evil qi entering the body without suffering backlash..."
Chen Ming replied, "Teacher, my Martial Soul cannot control evil qi."
Zhang Peng fell silent.
Then Zhang Peng said, "Very well. Next, we will discuss the key points of blood sucking cultivation."
Chen Ming answered, "Teacher, what you said is very good, but my Martial Soul not only drinks blood, it also eats flesh, so it might not be very suitable."
At Zhang Peng's realm, guiding low level Spirit Masters should have been effortless. The problem was that, first, he did not know how to teach, and second, as an Evil Spirit Master, his growth had depended heavily on his own Martial Soul and his own environment.
If the Martial Souls had been similar or at least close in type, it would have been fine. But Chen Ming's Martial Soul was simply too different from his.
Zhang Peng leaned toward the assassin type, focused on instant bursts. Chen Ming, on the other hand, was a tank type focused on endurance. Zhang Peng's talent lay in controlling beast spirits. Chen Ming's talent lay in strengthening himself by eating corpses.
The experience of one path simply could not be applied to the other. High level cultivation insights could still be used for reference, but Chen Ming's realm was still far too low.
The cultivation system of Spirit Masters was very fixed. Low level problems were limited, and over tens of thousands of years, predecessors had already gone through them all. Unlike other worlds, there was not much Chen Ming could newly learn in the Douluo world. Although Zhang Peng possessed special secret arts, Chen Ming could not learn them until his realm was much higher.
After a few days, Zhang Peng chose to give up and directly switched to a different method of teaching.
"When you were refining blood earlier, I said I would guide you. Now, I will teach you some real skills."
In the quiet room, Zhang Peng set up a large cauldron, then placed several shelves filled with different materials in the corner and looked at Chen Ming with a serious expression.
"When I was young and wandering the continent, I accidentally obtained a special Legacy that uses blood as its raw material. It was left behind by a Super Douluo senior whose Martial Soul was a Blood Demon. The technique was called the Blood Medicine Art."
"The Blood Medicine Art contains two inheritances. One is the Blood Art, which involves methods for refining vital blood and extracting bloodlines. It also includes secret arts for burning blood in exchange for cultivation and temporary combat power. The other is the Medicine Art, which is built upon the Blood Art and uses refined vital blood to concoct medicinal pills."
"This technique can be used to make medicinal pills or poisons. It can save people or kill them. It even contains methods for forcibly grafting Spirit Beast bloodlines onto humans. Even if separated and viewed individually, it is still a secret art capable of establishing a thousand year Legacy."
"I am only proficient in the Blood Art portion. As for the Medicine Art, I only understand part of it. Now, I will pass down to you the beginner level of the Blood Medicine Art."
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