Volume 4 - Bloodthirst Sect's Secret Realm
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Upon being sucked into the secret realm, Ken immediately kneeled on one knee in exhaustion and looked around. Seeing he was surrounded by four walls made of stone, he felt it was reasonable that he was sent there on purpose rather than randomly.
After sensing nothing using Blood Sense, he lay down and fell asleep.
"Greetings, Inheritor. You've earned the honor of being… Oh, he fell asleep."
The voice stopped awkwardly mid-sentence and tried to figure out what it should do in this situation. Eventually, it remained quiet and waited for Ken to wake up.
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10 hours later, Ken finally opened his eyes, feeling his sore body and the cold stone floor against it. He assessed his situation and determined that there was no serious injury, and his core was refilled to the brim with Qi.
'Luckily, I managed to think of a way to keep the Qi absorbed from others circulated in my meridians and body, preventing too much harm from my core. However, I still need to find a way to clean my core and my soul from the corruption it went through.'
Ken thought to himself as he checked his core. The four colors were much stronger ever since he advanced to the higher phase of his stage, but now he could also find small dots of other colors mixed. It wasn't much, less than 0.01% of his core, but those were impurities he had to get rid of, nonetheless.
'I guess that old man from the Serene Lotus Sect left this token for me.'
Ken noticed a token next to him. It landed in his hand a moment before he was teleported inside, and it fell from his hand right after. He figured it'd allow him to join the sect once he is out of the secret realm.
He got up and looked around him, seeing he was still in the same stone room as before without any exit in sight.
"Greetings, Inheritor. You've earned the honor of being awarded one reward of your choice. Would you like to choose now?"
It was the same voice he heard after killing the 10,000th person at the volcanic belt outside.
"Ken greets Senior. Before I choose, is this place safe?"
"It is."
"Do you mind if I recuperate first?"
Ken took out a healing pill and started ingesting its effects, feeling the minor injuries and bruises on his body heal.
"Ahm, there are thousands of people outside waiting to enter the realm. I can only let them enter after you pick your reward, so they've been waiting for you to wake up for 10 hours."
The voice coughed awkwardly and rushed Ken to choose a reward.
"All right, what are my options?"
"There are three options. You can pick an 8th-grade pill called Bloodlust Boosting Pill, and it does exactly what it sounds like. The alchemist used blood, soul pieces, and Qi they extracted from tens of thousands of cultivators. By taking the pill, your bloodlust will increase as if you killed half a million cultivators."
It might be a decent choice for someone who wanted a strong bloodlust but didn't want to become a murder machine, but Ken wasn't interested.
"No thanks, anything else?"
"Yes, but I will let you know first that future rewards are heavily dependent on your bloodlust. If it's not strong enough, your rewards in the secret realm will be rather low."
"I don't mind."
Ken was quite confident of his own bloodlust.
"Sure. The next option is a ninth-grade weapon. If you use a rare weapon, it might be just eighth grade though."
"No need, next."
·?θm Ken refused again; his sword fitted his current needs. It'd be a waste to take a stronger sword now.
"Sure. You can browse the catalog of the legacy's techniques. They're all of the higher-Heaven grade."
"Anything else is an option?"
Ken asked before even looking. If it was the last option he would take it, but otherwise he preferred something else. His whole skill set was made of techniques of the same grade, so it didn't tempt him as much as it tempted others.
"You're a hard nut to crack. Anyway, I can offer you a detailed map of the secret realm. It can give you a slight edge in your trips, and you might have a chance at claiming the other rewards later."
"I will take the map then."
A beam of light fell from the ceiling straight on Ken's glabella, and images entered his mind. The information included the names of each area, their general characteristics, and whether there was a test there or not. Overall, he believed it'd give him a great advantage in his exploration of the secret realm.
"Does this map include all the places in the secret realm?"
"It does. Although it doesn't include all the treasures one might find in the secret realm, it includes all the most powerful ones."
"All right, thank you."
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Outside, the portal opened, and everyone started storming inside.
"Hello, Inheritance Seeds. By entering here successfully you've cleared the first condition to earn the inheritance, which is having enough bloodlust. You, righteous cultivators, are hypocrites, haha!"
The voice laughed loudly, and everyone could hear its announcement. The righteous cultivators frowned but didn't talk back; it was foolish to talk back when they didn't know how much authority the voice had over their rewards there.
"To get your initial score, flare your bloodlust fully. The stronger it is, the better your score will be."
Everyone immediately exuded as much bloodlust as they could, trying to get the best start they could.
"Everyone gets Bloodlust Points according to their score in this demonstration. When you find treasures of the seventh grade or higher, they will be locked. To get access, you'll have to pay with those Bloodlust Points. The price will be named on the treasure."
The disciples remained quiet and waited patiently for the explanation to be over.
"The price was set based on the average bloodlust. To increase your BP (A/N: BP – Bloodlust Points), you need to do only one simple thing. Kill others, and let your token absorb theirs!"
Tokens descended from the sky with numbers written on them. They exuded a strong bloody aura, making it possible for everyone to sense one another's location. The better the score of the holder was, the stronger the aura it was exuding.
"Other than that, there are a few more rules you can figure out as you play. Good luck!"
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