When he exited the town, he hid in a cave and took out the book he got from the holy inventory. He thought deeply for a moment and said "I will call this Marionette Art for now."
Then he extended his hand and he tried to enter the book using his consciousness. Since there was already a connection between him and the book, he was able to successfully enter it. Inside, he saw the puppet sitting while holding the black robed man. The black robed man has a blank look on his face. He didn't feel any struggle coming from the man. It was like he was dead, but Ming Li clearly felt that the man was still alive.
He observed the man and the puppet for a while and noticed some strings attached to the man. He realized that the man has been possessed by the puppet! He tried to transmit a command to the puppet using his consciousness. The puppet fought back a bit, but in the end it still complied.
Ming Li's eyes glittered with joy when he saw the puppet following his orders. He issued several command and realized that he can control the black robed man through the puppet! It was something that really amazed Ming Li. He kept his consciousness inside the book for a long time and experimented on many things.
He learned that to use the puppet to capture someone, he needs large quantity of demonic energy. Last time that he used it, it was by the help of the tiny bit of demonic energy left in the book by its previous owner.
However, right now if he dared to use the puppet again, He would be surely drained and would not be able to use a single bit of demonic energy for some time. It could also damage his core and affect his growth.
Demonic energy from his core can regenerate, but It takes a long time for it to come back, and normally people would just absorb the energy around them to replenish the energy of the core if they ever use it. So using the demonic energy on his core would require him additional demon's grace to replenish it.
Also to increase his level, he needs to boost the demonic energy of his core to a greater amount than the current capacity it has to achieve a breakthrough. This is why he needs demon's grace to push his demonic core to its limit and allow it to transcend to the next level.
The higher his level gets the more demonic energy he needs. Demon's grace contains concentrated amount of demonic energy which allows him to quickly boost his level, unlike normal people absorbing natural energy.
Normally absorbing natural energy would take years to just achieve a single level. It would also depend on the size of the core on how much natural energy they can refine. So everyone resort to using pills or nature's dew to hasten their growth.
If there is a demonic energy on the surroundings he could actually control it to use it for his skills instead of forcefully using the demonic energy inside him, but sadly there are no demonic energy present almost at every place. The good thing is that he can still control natural energy and use it to fight.
After learning many things inside the book, he decided to continue crossing the mountains.
Several days passed and Ming Li continued to slowly traverse the mountain range. He felt extremely depressed on not being able to use his wealth on this barren mountains. He has the tendency to splurge whenever he earns big because he has been poor for too long.
Two weeks passed, he was still walking along the mountains with eyes blood shot while kept murmuring "I need demon's grace.. I need demon's grace.."
Every time an enemy finds his whereabouts, he had no choice but to flee. So a strong desire to increase his level surged from him, if he gets stronger, he can freely seek for knowledge without worrying about someone trying to kill him.
With this, he had no choice but to get more demon's grace, which triggered his addiction to demons grace to kick in.
Right now, he would even kill for a single demon's grace. He also started to regret not accepting the fifty demon's grace offered to him by Great Elder Gu.
Suddenly, while in the midst of thinking about demons grace, he heard hooves of horses hitting the ground. When he heard this, he immediately rushed to the location and saw a carriage full of supplies. "They seem to be merchants!" Ming Li thought while breathing deeply as if he found a treasure trove.
Ming Li rushed to the merchants like a hungry wolf. The seeker guarding the merchants were shocked from his sudden appearance and attacked him.
Ming Li saw the attack coming and he waved his hands in defense, sun's wave activated creating a huge heat wave to block the attacks.
The attacks collided and the land below the collision melted.
Ming Li then shouted "I am not a bandit! I am here to purchase some goods!"
The merchants was a bit wary of Ming Li, but they ordered the seeker to cease the attacks.
When Ming Li noticed everyone starte to calm down, he walked towards the merchants then asked "Do you have some Demons Grace?"
"Yes we have some, but it is meant to be delivered to someone in the Earth Hive town." A young man with lofty appearance said.
Ming Li felt pissed for some reason that the demon's grace he longed for was already sold. A complicated feeling arose from his chest when he thought about offering a higher price for the demon's grace. He wanted the demon's grace so bad, but he also don't want to uselessly loose soul ores.
He glance at the group, as if he was assessing if he can use force to just grab the demon's grace and run away. He has robbed food on many occasions before he met his master, so he instinctively thought of resorting to theft.
When he saw that there are two seeker in the same level as him and one at the second level of body tempering realm, he disregarded the idea and asked. "How much will they pay for each demons grace?"
The man with lofty appearance answered "25 thousand soul ores each."
Ming Li felt annoyed because 25 thousand was obviously not the price offered by the person in the earth hive town.
Despite being openly offered with a high price, Ming Li calmly replied "I will buy all of your demon's grace for 28 thousand soul ores each. Also I will buy some more herbs in the list." Ming Li threw a list towards the man.
When the man saw the list, his expression brightened up and said. "All of these are also reserved by someone on the earth hive town." Then he told Ming Li the price of each herb.
Ming Li suppressed his rage when he heard the prices. "So you are trying to sell even those herbs at staggering high price? You dare trick a thief" Ming Li thought with rage.
After thinking for a while, his eyes flashed with resolve and issued a mental command. Suddenly a black robed man appeared out of thin air. The black robed man said overbearingly "Hand over everything and I will let you live!"
The three seekers were a bit scared when they felt that the man was at the third level of body tempering realm. However, they immediately gained confidence when they thought they can win if they cooperate and attack the man simultaneously.
When they were about to attack, Ming Li suddenly shouted with a hint of fear, "Young master take everything I own. I have seen you, you are from a famous group around the area."
When everyone heard this, they looked closely at the man and noticed the spider logo embroidered on his robe. One man exclaimed while stuttering "He... He's from the black spider guild!"
Everyone also knew the black spider guild. So they started to back away and hesitate if they will attack. Since the man is stronger than them, he has a possibility of escaping and seek the guild for reinforcement or worst case there are already people surrounding them.
They knew the cruelty of the black spider guild, and would chose not to offend them if they have a chance.
On the other hand Ming Li doesn't know the name black spider guild, and he has no idea what the guild is about. He only gambled assuming that the guys trying to kill him were notorious and powerful group. He never thought he would get such an amazing reaction from everyone.
Seeing everyone's nervous reaction, Ming Li then shouted with fear "Now I remember! He is the young master from the black spider guild!"