Shaking his head, Liu Xing stopped thinking too much about her and walked closer to the pond. The water's surface shimmered in the soft light, reflecting the lush greenery surrounding it. Several large stones sat in the center of the pond, and Liu Xing thought this was the perfect place to test the necklace's abilities.

Leaping from the pond's edge, Liu Xing landed atop the biggest rock in the center. As his feet touched down, tiny ripples spread across the water's surface. Black, yellow, red, and blue koi fish swam happily below, occasionally splashing their tails and creating their own little ripples.

Liu Xing was pretty sure someone had built this pond, though when he looked around, he saw only trees, bushes, and moss-covered boulders. There were no houses or clan compounds nearby.

Standing on the boulder, Liu Xing touched the necklace and examined it closely. An engraving of two fiery wings caught his eye, and he hoped that this necklace was indeed the Red Wings of Stability.

"Let's activate it," he muttered.

If this necklace was truly the Red Wings of Stability, then when he activated it, two small fire wings would sprout from his back.

Sending qi to the necklace, Liu Xing felt the familiar sensation of his energy being drained. He let the necklace absorb his qi, wondering if it would suck it indefinitely like the Thunderstrike Gauntlets. After several minutes, with half his qi absorbed—a considerable amount—the necklace stopped absorbing his qi.

Now, the necklace emitted a warm feeling, as if it had eaten its fill and was ready to work. Liu Xing willed the necklace to activate, and instantly, he felt his body wrapped in what seemed like warm honey.

Checking himself, Liu Xing couldn't see any glow coming from his body. If someone saw him now, they would see a man wearing only pants, still dirty with blood, but nothing more and nothing less. Liu Xing turned his head to check his back, expecting two fire wings, but found nothing.

Seeing this, Liu Xing grimaced. "Looks like this necklace isn't the Red Wings of Stability."

Although Liu Xing could feel that the qi around his body was stable and he felt more durable, as if his vitality was boosted, he was still disappointed. After all, the Red Wings of Stability was one of the treasures he had planned to give to the sect to win the race. This necklace was probably similar to the Red Wings of Stability, but it wasn't listed as a gift for Hao Yun. Moreover, Liu Xing felt the stable qi in his body wasn't as strong as that of the frog.

Liu Xing sighed, but soon tried to cheer himself up. He looked at the bright side, at least he got something out of this fight.

"Let's see how strong this necklace is with my gun's qi," Liu Xing muttered.

Liu Xing summoned his gun in his left hand. He sent qi to the gun, which converted it into bullets, and then reabsorbed it into his body and sent it to the necklace. As the necklace absorbed it, Liu Xing felt it vibrate happily, and when the qi was fully absorbed, he felt the familiar warmth from the necklace.

Liu Xing activated the treasure, and like before, he felt warm qi surrounding him. Once again, he turned his head to check his back for wings, but was left disappointed.

He then tried to feel the warm qi that surrounded him, hoping it would be denser or stronger than before. Instead, Liu Xing found the effect was actually the same. The only difference was the amount of qi needed to activate it.

"There's no way it would be the same." Liu Xing furrowed his brow.

He refused to accept this conclusion. The qi from the gun was special; every technique and treasure became stronger using the converted bullets. There was no reason this necklace should be different.

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Liu Xing experimented with the stable, warm qi. Soon, he found a difference. Before, the warm qi surrounding him had felt like mud—stable, but hard to move. Now, even though it felt almost the same, this stable qi was obedient and moved easily.

This was a good feature. Liu Xing knew that when the qi surrounded his whole body, it felt thin, and the effect wasn't as strong as the frog's. But since he could move the qi, Liu Xing could concentrate it in one point and make it stronger.

Excited, Liu Xing tried to concentrate all the stable qi into his right gauntlet. This gauntlet was the one he used more often. In the last fight, it had almost broken because it held so much pure qi. He hoped that with this enhancement, the gauntlet could hold more pure qi, creating a stronger attack.

The moment he willed the stable qi to move to his gauntlet, it obeyed like a soldier following orders. In a fraction of a second, Liu Xing felt the stable qi concentrate on his right gauntlet.

As this stable qi concentrated in his right gauntlet, yellow lines appeared, circling the metal surface like delicate strokes of paint. Seeing this, Liu Xing raised an eyebrow. To test if it was mere coincidence, he moved the concentrated qi from his right gauntlet to his left.

As the stable qi settled in his left gauntlet, similar yellow lines appeared, adding color to it. Liu Xing moved it again, this time to his stomach, and as the qi settled there, he looked down and saw a yellow spiral on his stomach, as if he were a certain knuckleheaded ninja imprisoning a giant fox.

Seeing this, Liu Xing moved the concentrated qi back to his right gauntlet.

He pinched his chin thoughtfully. These yellow lines seemed purely aesthetic and unnecessary. If yellow lines suddenly materialized on his gauntlets, an opponent would instantly be alerted, thinking Liu Xing was trying something. But it wasn't too bad. He might look silly if these yellow lines suddenly appeared on his face, but if he needed to make his face more durable, Liu Xing would choose looking silly over dying.

"All right, let's test how durable my Thunderstrike Gauntlets are now," Liu Xing said with a smile.

With this, his power was increasing again. He still thought he lacked the strength to confront a Core Splitting realm cultivator with a single core, let alone one with four cores, but Liu Xing was inching closer to closing the gap every day.

***

Early in the morning, as golden rays of sunlight filtered through the leaves and cast mottled shadows on the forest floor, Liu Xing walked leisurely along the dirt path. On either side of him, countless snakes slithered through the underbrush.

A giant green snake, as big as a normal-sized crocodile, fixed its piercing yellow eyes on him. Dozens of black and red snakes moved as one, each sporting a tiny horn with red tips.

A massive python, the size of a cow, bulldozed through bushes and small trees, its black eyes making it look like the boss of the hundreds of snakes accompanying Liu Xing. There were countless serpents, perhaps a thousand, each moving in its own way. Some slithered on the dirt path, others wound their way from branch to branch, and some tunneled through the ground, leaving small furrows in their wake.

Liu Xing walked as if he was unaware of the thousand snakes following him, but in reality, he simply didn't feel threatened by them. Even though their number was large, he could easily dispatch them. The question on his mind was why they suddenly decided to follow him, and even though some of them looked hostile, some of them constantly bared their fangs as if challenging him to fight, and some of them tried to obstruct his movement, they made no attempt to attack. So Liu Xing let them accompany him.

Before long, Liu Xing spotted a suspension bridge ahead. Seeing this, he realized he would soon arrive at the location of the Diamond Pills.

Liu Xing retrieved the token from his spatial bag and summoned the interface about the Diamond Pills.

Name: Diamond Pills

Location: Near the Second Gray Cloud City

Description: These pills were concocted by a master alchemist named Zhang Ye. He was a loose cultivator allied with the Purple Moon Sect. He died four hundred years ago, poisoned by his rival at a pill-concocting tournament held by the Verdant Mountains Sect.

Additional info: The five remaining Diamond Pills are now guarded by a fox spirit beast.

There was other additional information, one of which was that someone had to go south from an inverted triangle to find these five pills, and Liu Xing suspected that they were hidden in a place like the lake he had visited yesterday.

Closing the interface, Liu Xing now stood in front of a long suspension bridge. The bridge was actually quite short, and he could see the other end. There, a single red snake had raised its head, its red eyes gleaming with intelligence.