Darkness welcomed Aiden when he reached the entrance of the cave on the high ground. The path here wasn't long enough, and he had reached in ten minutes, and no one had followed him. Which was of course, a good thing. Those three people were almost equal to his power, but they might have different skills, which might prove difficult.

The most important thing - he wasn't ready to throw his fifth life away.

As soon as he entered the cave, he ran outward. A stench wafted out from inside and almost choked him to death. If he had stayed inside for a few moments longer, he would have thrown everything he had eaten since the morning, or Li An had thrown since the morning.

"Damn it, what the hell is this thing?" Pinching his nose, he entered the dark cave again and let his eyes settle into the darkness. After a while he could see the contours of the objects, and as he knew from memories, it was an unremarkable cave at the back of the mountain where no one visited because people thought it was haunted by ghosts.

It took him a few moments to get used to the smell. At least it wasn't going to kill him.

”Ghost my feet. I need some light first.” Aiden peered into the gloom, his vision adapting unexpectedly well. While it wasn't as bright as day, he could make out shapes and forms like he was wearing night-vision goggles. He couldn't match the keen sight of the old man Li, but it beat his old Earth eyes by a long shot. The darkness didn't feel so dark anymore, and he could pick out details he never thought possible in such a dim light.

Accessing the memories of the old man Li, he searched for a hole in the middle of the cave. Old man Li kept a torch in there, but he wasn't sure if the torch would be still there. It had been years since old man Li visited this cave.

Thankfully, it was. But he didn’t have a stick lying around he could use to burn it, and he lacked any survival skills like creating fire from stones.

How was he going to live inside the dark cave without a torch?

Wait - the cave smelled like shit, rotten corpse and if there was a corpse around, then he could raise a fire.

For the next five minutes, he trudged through the inner area of the cave and finally found the source of the shitty smell. Thank god he hadn't eaten anything since awakening in Li An’s body. The mess in front of him would have made him thrown up multiple times. It was a horde of mutilated bodies piled up, and it seemed like a fight had taken place for something shiny.

After pulling a corpse of what looked like a bear away from other corpses, he cast a Corpse Refine on the corpse.

System: This is a Three Teeth Bear Corpse. This will not provide with a Corpse Blood but can be used to create an ingredient, Three Bears Poison. Do you want to proceed?

"Yes.” It was a bummer, but he knew from getgo that an animal corpse wouldn’t give him a Corpse Bloom. It couldn’t be as easy as that. Corpse Bloom only had 20% chance to be produced from Corpse Refine, and he couldn't get it every time he cast a Corpse Refine.

The corpse burned intensely for a moment, and a small vial of black liquid appeared in its place. In the moment of burning, Aiden had lit up his torch and lit the area in a strange dim light.

System: You have created a Corpse Fire Torch. Non learned skill detected. Do you want to deconstruct it?

Wait, what?

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Suddenly, he recalled he had this special skill because he came from Earth. Deconstruct and due to some system errors, he had 47 charges or something. Well, if it was a cheat skill, he would be sad to waste it on a skill like this, but without understanding the skill, he couldn’t really use it for his advantage.

Deconstruct

Quality: Non graded one

Grade: Non graded one

Within the infinite expanse of existence, hidden laws govern all. Whether mortals name it science, cultivation, or magic, these fundamental principles await discovery by the worthy. Deconstruct, a skill of unfathomable origin, grants its wielder the power to unravel the very fabric of skills and techniques.

80% chance to trigger deconstruct for a Common Skill.

20% chance to trigger deconstruct for any skill.

Non graded skills have no mana or qi associated cost.

Warning: Use with caution. Knowledge gained may reshape your understanding of reality.

"Yes."

System: Deconstructing Corpse Fire. Deconstructing Corpse Fire resulted in four skills. Choose one to learn.

Create Fire: Harness the primal essence of flame, birthing it from nothingness.

Rapid Corpse Decomposition: Accelerate the decay of mortal flesh, hastening its return to the elements.

Heat Control: Bend thermal energies to your will, manipulating temperature with a thought.

Heat Transfer: Command the flow of warmth, redirecting it as you see fit.

"Okay." Aiden stared at the message for a few seconds. It was a bummer, and he got nothing useful.

No, that wasn't true. His frame of reference was incorrect here. Every skill was useful at the correct time. Even create fire could destroy an entire forest it set up at the right time and right circumstances.

Even right now, Create Fire would be useful in this dark cave.

"Create Fire.”

Create Fire

Quality: Low Tier Bronze Grade

Rarity: Common

Create a fire with your qi. The fire will last until you have the qi capacity.

Cost: 1 qi/2 Mana per second.

System: You have learned the higher level of this skill due to your Alchemy Innate Talent.

System:

Alchemy Fire

Grade: High Tier Silver Grade

Rarity: Rare

Through the needs and desires, Alchemist of this world have learned the laws of fire at a higher degree. After spending many lives studying the properties of fire law, alchemist have evolved the normal Fire into Qi Fire and qi fire into Alchemy Fire.

With your understanding of alchemy, you can morph the common qi fire into Alchemy Fire, which will burn with intensity and temperature of your will.

Alchemy Fire can be compelled to leave host’s body and maintain its pace from a distance of ten feet.

Alchemy Fire will provide the host natural resistance to fire when covering the host and it can’t burn the host itself.

Cost: Null.

"Jackpot. A free fire skill." He could burn houses and forest with this fire. Especially the corpses that produced stench.

No, he would use the Corpse Refine to convert them into something useful like poison. Although he didn’t know how potent the poison was, it couldn’t be that bad coming from a Three Teeth Bear.

"Corpse Refine.” Aiden tossed the skill on each corpse individually and collected three separate types of ingredients from fifteen corpses. Two were poisons, and the third was a strange liquid unknown to him. It had a hint that it could be used for making a love potion, but it was just a hint by his Alchemy Latent Talent.

What the fuck was this Latent Talent after all?

A quick glance at Li An and old man Li’s memories clarified it for him. It was a skill everyone in this world practiced from the childhood. Old man Li was always fascinated about Alchemy so he brewed mortal level potions so he had got his Alchemy to level 14, and Li An worked in his village’s mine for his entire childhood, so he got the skill Gold Digger. Well, when Aiden first saw the wordings he was a bit sceptical about it. A Gold Digger was a gold digger in different terms on Earth.

Only available on Royal Road.

Gold Digger (Latent Talent) (Level 9):

Gives a boost to any digging related task and has a slight chance of identifying the best site for your quest.

It was mundane ability. Where would he go digging for anything?

Pushing those thoughts away, he focused on the Li An's memories. If he wanted to settle into this world with this body, he had to plan. Plan to survive.

However, looking at the first memory from Li An, he wasn't sure how much time he would survive.