As Will woke up, one thing was abundantly clear to him. He was damn hungry. It made sense. He hadn't eaten since he woke up the first day. And that was, what, six days ago? Whatever the whoever had done to bring him back from the dead had fixed his starvation too. But it didn't last forever. He was also a bit thirsty too. Hopefully the juice from some meat would fix that.

Luckily, he had just the pile of meat he had been waiting to grab. It felt like a horrible idea, considering how close it was to the Sick Freak's house, but he wasn't in a situation where he had much of a choice. He had a chance of killing a mouse if it let him, and that was about it.

He picked up his cultivation doors and headed off to get some meat.

He got there significantly faster this time with the Wind Dance footwork. Looking over from the distance, it appeared things went as he'd expected.

If his guess was correct, based on the scene, it looked like the monsters fought each other for a while, and once they'd killed enough off, the Sick Freak escaped somewhere. And that would've led the remaining monsters to follow him.

But the situation was even better than he'd expected. It appeared that the stronger monsters were picked off first. Which meant he had enough meat to feed himself for years. Though it would go bad, so not really.

The big question, though, was how to move it all. Walking up to the corpse of a giant bear, he grabbed its arm and pulled. It unsurprisingly didn't work. Maybe if he cut it into pieces? He'd have to move them one by one, though. He was severely lacking in storage options.

Wait, he had a ton of them. Dead. All around him. He just had to make a bag out of a pelt or something.

After trying that with the bear in front of him, it turned out to be a lot harder than he thought. He didn't have any thread, nor a needle. He hadn't even seen any spiders in this forest. He hadn't really seen any bugs at all, actually. He waved it off for now. At least the sword cut really easily. It was a bit scary to think about that too much considering he was forced to hold it in a way even scissors were dangerous to hold, by the handle facing up, but it was useful.

“You're only talking to me now? Didn't think of maybe giving me a heads up before charging over to the Sick Freak's front door?”

“How'd you even learn to talk, then?”

“Ah.”

“I got nothing.”

Will thought through all the abilities he had access to. The Information Manual Exchange Marketplace was pretty useless without a lot of points. Homesickness Rectification was nice for entertainment, but it wasn't much for doing things other than that. That left Document Manipulation. He felt like there was a chance at least. But it wasn't a good one. The Document Manipulation section only stored information. The physical stuff had to be carried around or be replaced with points.

It would be nice if he could store it in his meridians or dantian or something like he did with so much other stuff. Wait. Maybe he could? It felt like these things were full of lifeforce and spiritual energy. He could just lifeforce drain them!

He decided to start with adding to his spiritual roots first. He sucked out the lifeforce from the bear’s corpse. With the body dead, he found it flowed much easier. The spiritual energy resisted less as well.

“Kid, what the fuck are you doing?”

“You know how insane what you just said is, right?”

Will felt like he understood. He didn't care, but he understood how him draining the lifeforce like some evil sorcerer was probably not a normal thing.

He shrugged.

“That's about what I expected.”

Will continued siphoning the bear's lifeforce for fifteen minutes before it was empty. He did the same with three more bears, then a wolf before he felt his siphoning was fast enough to switch. He was planning to go half and half now with lifeforce now. Half to the dantian and half to the spiritual roots. For spiritual energy, he decided to keep it all going to the spiritual roots.

Actually, that gave him an idea. Didn't these guys have spiritual roots? Could he take them? After trying for a bit, he couldn't find them and gave up. He decided to just stick to his previous plan.

After another hour, his progress was massive. He could drain the ones that were just bigger than he was in a matter of seconds. Which was somewhat less impressive considering his size, but still.

After another hour, he was able to drain even the big ones in under a minute. The scene was terrifying by now with all the drained animals.

After another hour he was finally on the last one. Then he remembered why he came here. He got too engrossed in stealing and forgot about the meat issue. Luckily, the one he was working on was a snake just a bit smaller than the super snake, so the lifeforce drain hadn't spread to the head yet. Which wasn't great honestly. He felt like it was probably a bad idea to eat the head, where the venom was on a venomous snake.

And it was definitely venomous. He could see the venom sizzling as it hit the ground. Venom shouldn't even be doing that! That was a thing acid did! Why would the venom be acid!? How would it get like that!?

Will cut off his biology speculation and focused. He remembered the rule that poison is when it kills you if you bite it, and venom is when it kills you when it bites you. And that venom was on its fangs, so there was no doubt it was venom. But venom also didn't sizzle like that!

He decided to just go for it. He could figure it out. He cut off the snake's head with the sword, then picked it up. He didn't manage to do that, but he was able to roll it pretty easily. Snake head obtained, Will felt it was time to head off.

By the time his actions were noticed, he was already long gone.

—

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The Demonic Lightning Sovereign was finally able to escape the damn snake. He was only in underwear now, since it turned out it was attracted to his robes, but he'd escaped. He swore he'd kill that kid if he saw him again.

Then he saw something that froze him in fear. What the fuck happened to the monstrous beast corpses? He had considered the pile of monstrous beast corpses to be a nice gain of this whole thing. It more than made up for all the trouble the brat had caused, corpses of monstrous beasts of this level were incredibly hard to get, lightning attribute ones being even harder for him specifically considering their resistance to his attacks. But now, any joy he felt about it was replaced by pure despair.

It seemed that something terrible had seen the pile. And that terrible thing had drained them dry of everything. His mind raced with possibilities. True demon? No, they weren't usually interested in beasts. Devil? It felt close, but there wasn't any devil energy left behind. His mind ran through option after option, each one that didn't fit making him more and more fearful. Some unknown thing had broken through his formation in less than a few days, drained this huge pile of beasts, then disappeared without leaving a single trace!

He ran into his house and started putting everything in his storage ring. He felt it was best to move.

—

Will had made it back to his cave. It took three hours to roll it back, since had to carry his cultivation doors in one hand, and his sword in the other. It was an annoying nudging process that he thankfully got used to quickly. If he hadn't, he'd probably not even have made it. But he was here now.

All he had to do was cook this thing. He didn't know how to do that. Could things be cooked by lightning? He didn't know. Could the trees here catch fire? They didn't look like they would, but he could be wrong. But he couldn't chop them down anyway.

He remembered the array book. Making heat was one of the easiest things to do. He couldn't make a fire, but heat was safer anyway. He'd just have to stack a bunch of them. And the cave’s stone floor would do perfectly.

He drew an array in a document. He added the symbol that made heat, then another one that made it work better, then another that made it work better. After several minutes, he managed to get it somewhat working. Anyone who knew arrays would probably call him stupid, but it did work, so it didn't matter. Will exported it, blew on it to turn it on, and copied the activated version. Then he got to making more. It was incredibly cheap for what it was. He thought it was probably because of the sword being used as a physical medium. But also, his points were really high! They were half as much as before the battle with the Sick Freak. He ignored it for now.

After stacking two hundred heat arrays, he finally had a heat good enough to cook with. Hopefully. He cut the snake head into smaller pieces, each still big enough for a full meal, and placed them on the hot array stack. He couldn't find the venom gland, there was no venom he saw other than the teeth. He left all the parts that didn't look like regular meat, which was a good bit in a snake's head, but not all of it.

After waiting for twenty minutes, he felt they looked safe to eat. He pulled one out of the array with the sword, and picked it up. It stung his fingers a bit, but it was just off the grill, so that made sense. He opened his mouth and took a bite.

And immediately noticed something was wrong. Once he bit into it, liquid poured from inside. Purple liquid. Like the snake's venom. Purple liquid that he just swallowed a bunch of. This was where the snake's venom gland was, huh? When he felt the burning in his mouth, he started to panic.

It was bad. He had just swallowed a mouthful of super venom that sizzled when it hit the ground. It sizzled! It was a good thing he got an upgrade to his thinking speed from the lifeforce. He needed to think of something.

He looked inward to the venom. It was bad. If he died from biting into a venom gland like an idiot, he'd be seriously pissed. It was a lot too. Maybe he could put it in his dantian with the demonic lightning spiritual energy? It felt like there was something he could move. Like venom spiritual energy or something. Or poison. Well, it was killing him after he bit it, so poison it is.

He tried to move the spiritual part of the poison to his lower dantian. It was slow, but he was able to move it through his body while it ate away at everything, and throw it into his lower dantian, physical part included.

And it was a disaster. The demonic lightning spiritual energy didn't have a chance. And it was worse than just that. It absorbed it, so now it was demonic poison that electrocuted him. It also seemed to be spreading its effect to his body like the demonic lightning spiritual energy did, except instead of the fast movements effect, it was a being poisoned effect, mixed with a demonic corruption and electrocution effect!

It hurt like hell! And he was turning purple and red! That's scary! He had one other idea. If this didn't work, he'd be dead, no question. He forced all the storm qi he'd gotten from the sword into his lower dantian. The storm qi obliterated the poison completely. And he felt something crazy.

It really felt like the demonic lightning spiritual energy was incomplete compared to this. Its effect specific to quick movements was only a part of the new things he felt. He was stronger, faster, tougher, more flexible even. It was a complete boost all around. But even as all the storm qi entered his dantian he noticed something. It felt less raw. Even as aggressive as it was, it felt as if it was a refined form of energy. Refined to be weaker. Made handleable by a person.

He understood something. He probably was supposed to be doing something with the spiritual energy before throwing it in his dantian. But why should he? He didn't need to.

“Weak? Everyone but you got torn to shreds by it. Many of whom were at core formation. And you think it's weak? Are you insane!?”

The sword thought. Its qi was obviously more powerful than demonic lightning qi. Did this ked mean raw spiritual energy? Was this kid just shoving spiritual energy into his dantian? What kind of lunatic was this kid!?

“How have you been cultivating?”

“Just inhale? No breathing pattern? No circulating? Just inhale?”

“That's actually insane. How do you even control it?”

“I guess that makes sense at least.”

“No, it's not. Wait… didn't you just eat poison and almost die!? Why are we glossing over that!?”

“You can't progress using raw spiritual energy, you know. You'll get stuck at qi gathering.”

“Yes, really.”

“Thanks.”

“Huh?”

“You… you cultivated with multiple dantians?”

“With the same stuff?”

“Just because you believe you're immune to qi deviation… must you test it as much as possible like this?”

“Sure, whatever that means, yeah.”

The sword sighed.

“Fine, whatever, keep the other two, that's fine. You can just use the bottom one for my arts. It's fine.”

“Why!? You almost died from it just now!”

“That… actually makes sense.”

Will finished two pieces before he was full. It wasn't that bad without a pocket of death juice in it. It sucked, but it certainly could be worse. Like, if it was full of a liquid that kills you. That'd make it a lot worse.

He felt a lot better now that he'd eaten. He honestly didn't know what he was going to do now. He'd finally fixed the starvation thing, but the starvation thing was his main motivation. It seemed like he could just walk out of the forest whenever he wanted, but he didn't know which way was out. Maybe the Sick Freak had something? He could do another raid on his house. Will laughed at how dumb that idea was.

His only goal at this point was killing the Sick Freak. And that was a pretty long term goal. Unless he found some ridiculously powerful new trick…

Didn't he kind of find that? The poison. He still had the poison, it was in the meat with the venom gland still. A bit had spilled, but there was a lot still in there. He also had the fangs.

He felt like there was something there. He thought of the heat array. Perhaps poison gas? Will laughed mischievously. He felt like he had a great plan. He got to work on setting it up.

First, he picked up the venom gland meat piece. Then, he held the sides together and stabbed the fangs through to keep them in place. Then, he put a bunch of heat arrays on it.

“Hey, kid? What the fuck is that?”

“Wait, really? You think that'll work?”

“You sure?

“Fair enough.”

Will left his cultivation doors behind this time, and headed towards the Sick Freak's house. He was about to have some good fun.

After an hour, he was at the Sick Freak's base. He was starting to think this might have been a bad idea. Well, it was too late now. He walked through the overly huge entrance and found everything just as he'd left it, a total wreck. As he walked through the hole in the door, he found something was odd. The bookshelves were empty. That was weird. He headed into the next room. Looking around, the Demonic Lightning Arts book was gone too.

He decided to check upstairs. He found a kitchen, a lavish bedroom with bathroom included but no bed, and what he assumed was a cultivation chamber. He found nothing of interest except a few snacks. He would come back for those later. He went downstairs next. Downstairs was a creepy hallway made of stone. It was a big change from the white jade of the rest of the house. Looking through the rooms he found an alchemy room behind the first door on the left. Behind the first door on the right was what looked like a storage room. It seemed to be ransacked. He placed the poison doodad against the wall with an ingot he found weighing the mouth closed. Then, he started making the room double ransacked.

It was only a short bit before he found a treasure trove. In a small drawer was a pile of rings with arrays on them. He could read only one symbol, but that symbol made him giddy. It was a symbol having to do with space! These were storage rings. He put five on the hand that wasn't holding the sword, and they shrunk around his finger to fit it. Then he realized he didn't know how to use them.

“Yeah. Here.”

The sword sent a bundle of information. Copying and embedding it, Will was able to check the contents of the storage rings. They were empty. They weren't really that high quality either. But they were a great boon for him. Will tested all the rings. None had anything in them. Will decided to put most of the rings on his right hand that the sword was in. He didn't really need to worry about being able to grip things with that hand, since he couldn't hold anything other than the sword in it, and the sword couldn't be dropped. He then put two on his index finger on his left hand. He had space for stuff not. Stuff like everything in this room? He crammed everything around him into his rings. He managed to fit it all into three rings. Will went over to his poison doodad, picked it up, and placed the ingot in a ring. He popped into the alchemy room to grab the rusty cauldron off to the side there, as well.

Will went back upstairs and then grabbed everything that he could. He managed to get a bedside table, a mirror, the snacks, oven mitts, a pot, a pan, and a mat.

He went back downstairs to check the rest of the rooms. The hallway was long. It was also uneventful. The rooms were all prison cells. Shocking as it was the first time, Will couldn't bring himself to keep being shocked after the sixth one. None had anything in them other than blood and chains of the walls. There were sixty of them. After that the hallway ended. It was disappointing. He'd hoped for more loot.

Walking back to the stairs he remembered why he came, to kill the Sick Freak. It seemed he had moved. It was somewhat disappointing honestly. He made a note to get more venom later so he could go through with the plan later. He decided to just head back to the cave. After robbing everything left in the trial halls, of course.