Refining the Mountains and Rivers

With one big step, he stepped into the source of life and immediately sunk into it. The faint purple ice started to gather. In the next moment, something surprising happened. The layer of purple ice suddenly disappeared.

If not for a huge hole appearing in the ground, it would make people doubt what they just saw and believe that they had seen wrongly.

Still in a daze, Xu Shi did not know how much time had passed. He immediately straightened and jumped up. He started to grumble, "Bastard, don't touch my source of life!"

He then looked up into the distance and saw the huge hole in the ground. It resembled how he felt when his head got hit. Xu Shi's head started spinning as he fell to the ground with a 'plop'.

He started to curse and wail. His curses filled the air like a river, constantly swirling around.

If curses could kill, Qin Yu would have been torn to pieces, but unfortunately they could not.

Even so, his current state was not good.

Although the purple source of life contained a lot of power, after his torture of eating the endless Spiritual Snake, this was just ordinary to Qin Yu.

That's right. Qin Yu was alive. He managed to hold on to his life after the Spiritual Snake feast. As for the Rule System, he could be considered to have just barely succeeded. If not, he would not have been able to eat it all.

But since he just barely succeeded, it meant that there were some problems…Cough cough, fine, the problems were not small.

For example, the red robe that Qin Yu usually wore was now blood red because it had absorbed a lot of his blood. Qin Yu's current state was as if he had been broken into a million pieces and then put back together like a puppet - but did not fit exactly. Or rather it was like his body was filled with explosive landmines?

All in all, it was like he was forcefully put back together but not perfectly. This was the result of forcefully absorbing all that energy.

Qin Yu's body looked like it would crumble at any moment. Under his blood red robe was a very frightening scene. His body was constantly falling apart and then healing.

However, Qin Yu felt that now his blood was really too precious. This was what he got from struggling and persisting. He could not waste any. Hence, he let the Purpleback Bluewing Ants eat his blood and his robe became more and more red.

Too long-winded. Simply put, although Qin Yu did not die from eating too much, his current situation was horrible. He had to continue to find sources of life and absorb their energy to prevent his body from exploding under the Rule System. At the same time, he had to think of a way to continue cultivating.

Qin Yu did have some impression of Xu Shi, but he could only say that Xu Shi was unlucky. In Qin Yu's current state, he was trying to survive. Let's not mention Xu Shi; even if his senior was here, he would have hit him too.

But the truth was that even the purple source of life could not cause any drastic change to Qin Yu's current state.

He had temporarily prevented his body from breaking down from the Rule System. But this was only temporary. If he wanted to completely recover, it would be a lot more difficult.

According to Old Turtle, this was the price to pay for killing an innate spirit…regardless of the difficulty in killing the Spiritual Snake, the horrifying state of the Land of Heavenly Punishment, the test after killing it, or being on the brink of life and death when trying to eat the flesh. Even after succeeding, he still had to face the possibility of dying at any moment.

The innate spirit was born when the heavens and earth was created. It contained universal properties from the world. Killing an innate spirit was like getting rid of a very small piece of the world.

Did you think there would be no price to pay?

Even killing a saint would incur a punishment from heaven, much less what Qin Yu just did today. It was a miracle that he was still alive.

When Qin Yu found out, he gritted his teeth. If not for his current condition and that he could not afford to flare up, he would have taught this bastard a lesson.

Why didn't he say this earlier, now it was useless to say it. Did you become more bold just because you think I can no longer fight? Just wait, I will remember this. When I get better, I will deal with you all!

But the truth was that Qin Yu knew very well. No matter what Old Turtle said back then, he would not have easily given up.

No, he would never have given up!

It was extremely rare to meet a young innate spirit. It was a one in a million chance, if he had chosen to retreat out of fear of the end result, then Qin Yu would have regretted it. He would have never gotten over that regret in this lifetime.

Moreover, in the path of cultivation, one was bound to meet a lot of difficulties. It was like walking on a log bridge: every step is filled with danger and could be life-threatening at any moment. If he had been overly cautious and stopped moving out of fear, he would not have reached where he was today.

Hence, Qin Yu knew that he could not blame anyone for the situation he was in. He shifted his thoughts just to divert his own attention and appease the anger and unease within him.

He who constantly threaded the thin line between life and death felt as if he was sitting by the side of a volcano that would erupt at any time. He was not feeling that great. Qin Yu felt that he was already doing well as he could keep calm and think.

I am already suffering so much, isn't the punishment over? All I did was kill an innate spirit. Moreover, it was the one that provoked me. Now that I have already killed and eaten it, I barely cultivated my body with the Rule System and became close to an innate spirit. Can't I be let off?

As he thought all sorts of nonsensical thoughts, the purple source of life was about to be depleted.

Qin Yu's mouth twitched, this rate of absorption was a lot faster than he imagined. What was scarier was the rate at which his body was breaking down. He would not be able to hold on long in his current situation.

Once the Rule System body broke down, Qin Yu would die.

He did not want to die. He had to continue to look for sources of life, and they had to be of high quality. He suppressed the absorption rate.

Following what was said earlier, the only reason why Qin Yu was in such a miserable state was because his imperfect Rule System body absorbed too much energy.

Hence, the phrase 'Drinking poison to quench one's thirst' was highly appropriate to describe Qin Yu.

He was absorbing sources of life to prevent his Rule System body from crumbling, but the absorption of so much energy was causing a lot of hidden damage to him. There was a high risk of him breaking apart.

This vicious cycle…

Qin Yu knew this very well but he had no other choice. He could only persevere with each step and hope to find a way to turn things around.

He could not delay any longer. Time was too precious.

Previously, time was also precious to him as he put in all his effort to find a source of life. Although now he was still looking for sources of life, the meaning had completely changed.

Initially, it was to become stronger. Now it was to survive!

It was obvious, the more he did the more difficult things became.

…

Previously, it was mentioned that the Zhang Family which Zhang Zhongshi came from was quite famous in the Vast Brightness World. With no natural aptitude to become Saints, they managed to enter the Saint circle. Everyone admired them for their strong performance.

On top of that, the news of the ambush on White Phoenix had spread in the Lost Garden and Zhang Zhongshi's reputation was quite good.

So he was able to smoothly find his first transaction target. The reason was that by utilizing the power of the Zhang Family's secret array formation, he could faintly feel the aura of the Source of Life. But this violated the rules of the Lost Garden. As a result, he couldn't do it alone, otherwise he would bring punishment down on himself.

As a result, Zhang Zhongshi needed someone to cooperate with him. The other party would work with him to find the Source of Life. The plan was long and explicit, so much so that the other party believed he had prepared for this for a long time already and wasn't speaking nonsense.

There wasn't much to say about the specifics. After a brief discussion, the chosen first transaction target left in excitement. As Zhang Zhongshi watched his back fade into the distance, his smile slowly dissapeared until there was nothing left but an icy cold chill.