A bunch of Mono-eyed Rhinoceros grazed in a meadow while a bigger one slept on an elevated rock overseeing all the others. This bigger Deviant Beast sported battle scars and its grey hide had a red gradient that became deeper on its back. The air it exhales left its nostril as puffs of steam.

Suddenly, the wind picked up, making the trees and other foliage rustles. A burning scent accompanied the breeze as it washed over all of the Deviant Beasts in the area. As the Mono-eyed Rhinoceroses breathed in the scent, their pupils constricted. Red veins lined their sclera as they began trumpeting or screaming wildly. Even the bigger Rhinoceros wasn’t exempt from this as it started thrashing around.

The Mono-eyed Rhinos began to see red, unable to differentiate between friend and foe. Enraged, they bashed each other and rammed their horns into one another, some of them even had their large eye poked out. Amidst all of it, the bigger Rhino was racking up most of the kills. It charged forward, stabbing a smaller rhino and running over. Even with a rhino stuck to its horn, it continued charging and smashed into trees. The big Rhino’s charge only stopped after it had broken the fifteenth tree in its path. The smaller Mono-eyed Rhinoceros that was stuck to its horn had already turned to paste.

The other smaller Beasts duked it out with one another. Once their enemies were dead, they would move on to others. It was like a disorganized tournament. And while they were smaller than the ‘alpha’ Rhino, they were still as big as sedans. And the alpha was as big as a minivan.

The alpha kept thrashing around in the trees a bit away from the meadows while the ‘tournament’ between the smaller ones was almost about done. The last Mono-eyed Rhinoceros standing was in terrible shape. It had bruises and was bleeding from multiple stab wounds on its body; one of its legs was swollen and the bone inside was broken. It panted heavily and was literally on its last legs.

Swoosh!

An arrow whistled through the air. With a pop, it embedded itself into the Rhino’s eyes. The Rhino fell on its side and only the tail of the arrow could be seen from its bleeding eye.

The youth climbed down from another tree. He was more than half a kilometer away but it took him less than fifteen seconds to run over there. There were three layers of cloth covering his mouth and nose.

He went up to the Beast he shot and took out the arrow from its eye. The blood and aqueous humor dripped from its tip. He looked in the direction of the Alpha Rhino. The vibrations on the ground and its heavy stomping had decreased a lot.

“The poison finally kicked in, eh?” he remarked. He no longer wasted time and went in the opposite direction of the wind. Nearby was a huge pot with a variety of herbs boiling in water. The campfire under the pot crackled. The youth took the pot off and extinguished the fire. Carrying the pot in both hands, he walked to where the Alpha Rhino was. A slew of broken trees lay around it.

It was twitching. The youth looked at it and assessed the situation, “Broken horn, poisoning, bruises, and bleeding from the head whilst frothing from the mouth. Well, I guess I don’t need this!” He dumped the contents of the pot nearby. Not like anyone was going to be coming there.

Seeing its weakened aura, he guessed that the Alpha Mono-eyed Rhinoceros must’ve been in the 8th Stage of Qi Condensation Realm. Now, it had dropped by 3 stages. The youth walked up to it and punched the side of its head. The beast jolted from the hit and stopped twitching.

The youth shook his head, “Man, this guy’s still tough.” Taking out a dagger, he began to skin it. As he was slicing its hide off, Jian Gong popped out behind him and looked at the massacre he caused. He whistled and remarked, “Man, why don’t more people use poison if you can do these kinds of things?”

“That’s because it’ll work less and less in higher realms. At those times, you got to find herbs strong enough to poison cultivators in higher realms but those are rare as hell!”

“So, are you going to walk the way of poison? I mean, you have Wang Tai’s extensive knowledge of poisonous herbs.”

Jian Gong’s words hit a sore spot and the youth’s brows furrowed. Through gritted teeth, he replied, “Listen, there’s a problem with his knowledge. Rather, there’s a problem with all of their knowledge.”

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“That being?” confused by the sudden mood change, he took a step back.

“That being- it’s all fucking outdated. Their knowledge is from millennia ago and even the most recent Monarch’s knowledge is 500 years old. So, none of their fucking recipes or observations apply here. Let’s use an example. Why not use Wang Tai’s knowledge of poisonous herbs? Because they are all more than 2500 years old. Things adapt, they change. None of the herbs he listed as ‘common herbs’ even exist. They only exist in legends, fucking legends.”

“Hey, chill out, man. No need to get so upset.”

“You were there when [System] told me their knowledge was outdated! I didn’t have the time to register it then but I’m sure feeling the effects now. Listen, I had to suffer agonizing pain for this knowledge that isn’t even-” even though he was ranting, the youth’s hands never stopped. He skinned the Alpha Rhino and made an incision on its body before beginning to dig for its demonic core, “-relevant to the times. I don’t know about you but I don’t particularly enjoy the feeling of someone piercing my skull with a jackhammer. I’m neither a masochist nor do I want to see how much my body can take.”

“I see your point but all I can tell you is to deal with it,” Jian Gong threw his hands up in surrender. He continued, “It’s not like ranting about it will suddenly make this information useful.”

“Nah, I’m just a bit pissed at them and myself. At them for not including their combat knowledge when they passed their knowledge to me and at myself for not knowing better.” The youth dug around inside the Rhino’s body for its demonic core. He finally found something spherical and pulled it out.

In his bloodied hands was a crystal ball, the red energy swirled and danced. It looked pretty almost like a light show.

“That’s a good demonic core. That’ll fetch a nice price in the market or you can choose to absorb it.”

The youth gripped it a bit tighter, “I’ll choose to absorb it.”

“In that case, I should remind you that absorbing Qi from Deviant Beasts’ demonic core has its own set of risks.”

The youth raised an eyebrow and asked, “Those being?”

“Well, Deviant Beasts actually run on Demonic Qi. And just by the name, it’s bad news. But basically, although humans and every other creature absorb the same creature from the world(with some exceptions), they-”

“I can’t hear you when you speak in parenthesis.”

“I mean there are some cases where beings need a specific type of Qi to cultivate. But otherwise, everyone uses the same Qi. But the ways our bodies process the Qi inside are different. For humans and some other humanoid sentient races, they turn the world’s Qi into just ‘Spiritual Qi’ inside their bodies. But Deviant Beasts and demons turn the same Qi into ‘Demonic Qi’ inside. I know the naming scheme’s dumb. Take it up to the people of this world.

But continuing on, it won’t be a problem if you could absorb Spiritual Qi which is damn near impossible to do. It will be a problem, however, if you absorb Demonic Qi. Deviant Beasts are savages, the Demons are sentient savages. And their savagery is mostly influenced by this Demonic Qi and also by how they were raised but that’s a different matter. Of course, half-bloods among these races can still be civil but we’ll talk about that eventually.”

“So, in summary, if I absorb this I’ll also be influenced by savage thoughts?”

“Yes, and no.” Jian Gong raised his index finger and pointed at him, “Remember, you have a Monarch Grade Cultivation Technique. It’s bound to come with-”

“Wait, wait,” the youth stopped him, “wasn’t the Celestial Monarch’s Cultivation Art a Divine Grade cultivation art?”

“I don’t think I ever said that explicitly. I did a bit of digging around and apparently, there are Gods and Goddesses in this world.”

“Yo, what the fuck?” The youth exploded. “You didn’t think to mention this before!?”

“Relax, they’re all but dead in this time period. Like I was saying,” Jian Gong glared at him and continued, “You have Monarch Grade cultivation art. It comes with its own benefits. One of them is suppressing and expelling Demonic Qi. When you absorb Demonic Qi, your cultivation art will automatically suppress the mental erosion from it and will continuously expel it out of your body, leaving only the converted Qi.”

The youth’s eyes lit up, “So, I can just absorb Demonic Qi and it will instantly deal with the side effects? Nice!”

“Uh, no,” Jian Gong’s words poured a bucket of cold water on his enthusiasm. “It’ll take a long time to expel the mental erosion but it’ll take much less to convert the Qi.”

“And uh, how long is that ‘long time’?”

“If you absorb the Demonic Core in your hand, it’ll suppress the mental erosion immediately but will take two months to expel it.”

The youth sighed, “That sounds…reasonable, I guess.”

“Go ahead, absorb it then.”

The youth nodded and began absorbing the energy out of the Demonic Core.