After completing his training, Niu Chang opened his eyes only to discover that the girl had been deeply affected by the power of his Shrine Maiden Under the Sacred Tree. She stood there, her eyes unfocused and a slight blush on her face.
‘What could she have been daydreaming about?’ Niu Chang wondered to himself as he walked towards the girl.
He gently shook her body to wake her up, and the external stimulation helped her snap out of her trance. Blinking a few times, she smiled at Niu Chang.
Her smile was different from before. Previously, she had smiled at him like a child smiling at an adult, but now her smile held the maturity of an adult.
‘I'm certain she had some inappropriate thoughts in her mind just now,’ Niu Chang thought, ignoring the obvious. He began asking her various questions to test and verify what he wanted to know.
"What is your name?" he asked.
The girl tilted her head cutely and pondered for a moment before replying, "Which one?"
Niu Chang intuitively understood what she meant without getting lost. "Tell me both. Let me know what you know."
"Okay," the girl nodded. "The first one is Shen Sanhua, and the second one is Dong Qiuyue."
"Shen Sanhua had a privileged life, born into a wealthy and prosperous family. On the other hand, Dong Qiuyue had a difficult life, born into a poor family and has suffered since birth."
Although Niu Chang didn't know much about Shen Sanhua, he knew she came from a prestigious family based on her expensive clothing before he killed her.
‘Why would a woman like her venture into this forest near a remote village? Is it just for plot convenience?’ Niu Chang wondered.
"Between the two, which one do you think you are?" he asked the girl.
Without hesitation, the girl replied, "Since only Dong Qiuyue has a connection to the savior, naturally I'm Dong Qiuyue."
She happily disregarded the pleasant memories of Shen Sanhua and chose Niu Chang.
‘Based on her answer, it's clear she's not as innocent as a newborn baby. She already harbors a deep obsession with me, just like the other girl. Even when given the choice between sweetness and bitterness, she unhesitatingly chooses the bitter option,’ Niu Chang thought to himself.
Satisfied with her responses, Niu Chang continued to ask her various questions to test her personality. After fifteen minutes, he concluded that the girl could be useful to him, even though he couldn't do anything about her due to the limitations imposed by the system.
"Alright, Qiuyue, I want you to harbor animosity towards me," Niu Chang instructed. Qiuyue was the name he had chosen for her, mainly because it had a favorable meaning. Since she belonged to him now, there was no need for a surname.
Qiuyue felt strange for a moment, but their fifteen-minute conversation had molded her childish and pure personality to comply with Niu Chang's command, even if it went against her heart.
[Ding!]
[Karma established with Qiuyue.]
The system's notification appeared, and the Automatic System Answerer displayed its function.
"Good," Niu Chang smiled at Qiuyue and wanted to pat her head, but he was too short. He made a mental note to find a safe place and create a technique to change his physical appearance.
With a new companion to accompany him, Niu Chang no longer needed the demonic snake to have some freedom. He considered killing the snake using his Shrine Maiden Under the Sacred Tree skills but decided against it.
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‘Eternal Vow targets the soul and spirit. If I kill it with that, the body would remain alive but empty. How would I resurrect it then?’ Niu Chang pondered.
Walking towards the large black noodle, the demonic snake could sense danger emanating from Niu Chang. It tried to curl up and protect itself, but its spinal injuries prevented it from doing so.
‘A good instinct indeed,’ Niu Chang thought. ‘There's no need to have a follower with good instincts or a good head.’
Approaching the demonic snake, he placed his palm on its scales, feeling the cold and rock-hard texture. The qi surrounding Niu Chang changed direction, following his command to invade the snake's body.
Since his qi control proficiency was still basic, he couldn't directly cut the snake's innards. The transformation qi, taking the form of sharp sword qi, split into thin threads that sliced through the snake's body.
Wriggling and struggling in pain, the demonic snake tried its best to shake Niu Chang off, but it couldn't. Niu Chang finally reached its heart and crushed it without hesitation. Instead of destroying the entire interior, he severed the heart from the surrounding blood vessels, opting for efficiency.
Niu Chang also took the opportunity to scan the demonic snake's body, gathering a wealth of data. While scanning human bodies was easy to find in the future, it was more challenging with demonic beasts.
‘The qi is rioting due to its survival instinct,’ Niu Chang observed. ‘The muscles are trying to stop the internal bleeding, but it's clumsy. The demonic snake can't control its smooth and cardiac muscles properly. This vitality... it's even more prominent than in humans, but I can't sense its spirit or soul growing fainter.’
He partially activated his Eternal Vow to sense the presence of the snake's soul and spirit. Although he couldn't directly perceive them, he could capture a hint of their existence.
To delve deeper, Niu Chang activated the Demonic Embrace of Lady in White and Red, using the connection with the shrine maiden phantom to enhance his perception.
Niu Chang was focused on efficiency, realizing that targeting the soul and spirit was more effective in killing enemies than physically attacking them. The shrine maiden phantom materialized around the snake's head, and through its connection, Niu Chang activated the Eternal Vow.
For a fleeting moment, he sensed something. He couldn't find the words to describe it, but it was there. As the dying snake was vulnerable to mental attacks, it didn't take long before it passed away.
[Karma point acquired: 3012]
After receiving the system's notification, Niu Chang deactivated his skills. However, he was dissatisfied with the small number of karma points he gained.
‘Only three thousand? So little. Shen Sanhua also gave me around three thousand karma points, while the old man gave me around seven thousand. They all had similar cultivation levels, so what does this mean?’ Niu Chang pondered.
He came to a disheartening conclusion, ‘This only means one thing: a stronger enemy doesn't necessarily yield more karma points. Strength isn't the main factor influencing the amount of karma points one receives... or perhaps, this is a method to suppress my cultivation speed?’
‘Instead of basing the amount of karma points on the enemies, the system manipulates it to suit my conditions. Is this an arbitrary power suppression and improvement for the sake of plot convenience? Ridiculous! I don't believe such nonsense,’ Niu Chang thought, smiling crookedly. He looked up at the sky and silently prayed, hoping his assumption was wrong.
Shaking off the distracting thoughts, Niu Chang began to heal the corpse of the demonic snake. It served as a good exercise for him. Instead of accumulating grains of sand to build a mountain, it was better to gather boulders for the task.
By resurrecting various corpses, his proficiency in Verdant Will would naturally improve significantly, rather than merely healing minor injuries.
The verdant green qi entered the demonic snake's corpse, working to heal it from the inside.
Niu Chang had already identified the area where he had caused damage, so he focused on restoring the demonic snake to a living state, rather than its peak condition. Engaging in a fight with it would only waste his time.
Before long, the severed blood vessels reconnected to the heart, initiating the pumping of new blood through the body.
Simultaneously, the fresh corpse regained a renewed sense of vitality.
With his heightened intuition, Niu Chang sensed the precise moment when the boundary between death and life was breached.
The demonic snake rapidly closed and reopened its eyelids, its initial instinct being to shake off Niu Chang from its body.
However, it abruptly halted its movement, as if questioning itself, "Am I already dead?"
A sense of unreality washed over the demonic snake, causing it to doubt its own mind.
Observing that the demonic snake appeared similar to how it was before, Niu Chang confirmed the crucial piece of information he had sought.
"The heavenly dao does not exist in this world!"