Tainted will

The battle had ended in a flash.

With a sword in his right and a head in his left, Bai Ming stood dozens of meters away from ji wumeng's corpse.

"It surely paid off, way better than what I imagined it to be. Hehe, battles are truly a path of cultivation. Fusing both formation path and sword path to make the best out of my abilities, truly wonderful. I had doubts it would not have worked. But, god was i terribly wrong, surely the fact that she was already poisoned also contributed in killing her. Battle qi, flame essence these are just buffs in the path of cultivation, but ones attainment is irreplaceable."

Fusing different paths isn't totally outlandish, there are so many sword or blade or other techniques which have accomplished this.

Bai Ming had also set up formations in the past, which have mainly utilized elemental path.

But Bai Ming had never thought of incorporating sword path into a formation, even though Bai Ming had grandmaster level formation path attainment he didn't have a formation path inheritance or a teacher to guide him, he could only let his imagination lead him forward. Attainment after all in simple terms was an ability of creation. As long as Bai Ming had enough inspirations or some reference material, he could advance forward.

Earlier in the battle he had an sudden idea of creating a sword path formation. Once Bai Ming had this inspiration, along with his very high attainment in sword and formation path it was extremely easy for Bai Ming to set up a sword path formation.

As for how effective it was, one could only imagine the power achieved from stacking up sword path supreme grandmaster attainment, formation path grandmaster attainment, battle qi. If calculated it would be a total of 17× increase in strength. There was also the fact that this formation used Bai Ming himself as the weapon.

This was more than enough to kill Ji wumeng who already had a foot in the grave.

"Fusion of paths-self sword formation, it's a worthy name, haha." Bai Ming was thrilled to have survived this calamity, even though Bai Ming has already physically died twice and didn't fear death any longer. But he certainly didn't want to die, fearing death and not wanting to die were completely different things.

If Bai Ming had ever feared death, he would certainly not have taken all those deadly risks to get stronger.

Only after a whole minute had passed did Bai Ming finally approach the fallen corpse.

Bai Ming was warry of the fact that there might be slim chance of Ji wumeng self-detonating even after he chopped off her head.

Bai Ming stood infront of the corpse examining it with much focus, next he also examined the severed head.

Bai Ming frowned slightly, thinking to himself 'Such a vicious poison. Sigh, such a waste of material. Even if I remove the poison there is zero benifit for me, the moment I killed her the spiritual essence restricting the poison in her disappeared and within just a second everything inside has rotten.'

Bai Ming picked up Ji wumeng's mid grade treasure sword and her storage bag before using his flame essence to turn the corpse into dust.

Bai Ming then sat in a meditative posture and began healing himself with the help of a 3rd grade healing formation.

After making a full recovery, Bai Ming began searching the village for treasures.

The Jiang village had become desolate, but Bai Ming had previously gotten lot of information about the village, but he still had to spend nearly three hours to completely plunder the Jiang villages underground treasury.

"Two hundred thousand spirit stones, 20,000 thousand litres of spirit liquid. With these resources and with the help of a 4th grade formation I should be able to reach the peak of spirit realm within eight or nine months of time. But it's better to breakthrough spirit realm and travel to the mainland, there I should be able to get my hands on precious pills which can make my cultivation speed even faster and also remove the consolidation period after every breakthroughs." Bai Ming pondered as he held Ji wumeng's storage pouch in his hand.

"Hehe, I have also gotten few high tier techniques belonging to the water, earth and fire path. Now I can finally begin the creation process of my second sword technique. But there was no record of that transformation technique anywhere, but it doesn't matter." Once Bai Ming completed his thought process, he began refining ji wumeng's bag of holding. Removing her divine sense and refining it with his own.

The reason why Bai Ming desired a fire path technique was because he wanted to create a sword path martial skill which could also incorporate fire path essence.

With Bai Ming's sword path attainment, the highest grade of technique he could create was a peak mystic grade skill. But Bai Ming currently lacked inspirations to create a technique of this level, hence Bai Ming chose the second best path for him. And that was to create a sword path technique with fire element incorporated in it.

During his time in the forest, Bai Ming's true objective was to get inspirations while fighting against demon beasts and help him create a sword path martial skill before heading to the mainland. After this period of time Bai Ming had already 90% completed it. As long he was given bit more time Bai Ming had confidence that he could create his first sword path technique quickly and its tier would probably be at peak of extremity grade.

Martial techniques are ranked low to high as follows starting from low grade, mid grade, high grade, superior grade, extremity grade, mystic grade and heaven grade. Martial skills ranging from superior grade to heaven grade, have three subdivisions mainly; lower, upper and peak tier.

Ji wumeng's bag of holding trembled and immediately started to release strands of white gas.

Bai Ming bit the tip of his tongue and spat out a mouthful of blood filled with spiritual power. Then, he moved his hands and a strange symbol appeared in the air.

The moment the symbol appeared, the blood started to enter the symbol. Soon, all of the blood was absorbed and all that remained was a blood colored symbol. Bai Ming waved his hand and the symbol landed on the bag of holding.

The white gas coiled around the pouch before it gradually began destroying Ji wumeng's divine sense in it.

Bai Ming sent another blood red symbol, but this time his divine sense had also began eating away at Ji wumeng's divine sense.

After spending nearly twenty minutes, Bai Ming had completely refined the bag of holding. Now he could access everything inside it.

Bai Ming immediately sent his divine sense inside the newly acquired storage bag.

The first thing Bai Ming noticed was the space inside, it was three times spacious than the one he owned.

Next, Bai Ming expectantly scanned the items inside. But the expectant light his gaze dimed out.

It was to be expected, ji wumeng had already spent a fortune to find out the killer of her husband. She also had to constantly get high level pills to keep her poison in check, she had absolutely no desire to die before killing Bai Ming.

"Disappointing, just ten to fifteen thousand spirit stones. Hmm, there are bunch of 4th grade and even few 5th grade poison control pills, there also few thousand lighting arrow inscriptions. Oh, there is even a movement path technique here and it's even a peak superior grade one at that. There isn't any other martial skills here, it would have been great if I could study that earlier sword art. And this cultivation mantra is not useful for me, I already possess a top notch cultivation mantra." Bai Ming's mood turned for the better after getting some gains.

Bai Ming's expression suddenly changed, his eyes flashed with seriousness. In some corner of the storage space there was ordinary looking sword quietly hovering, Bai Ming's eyes immediately showed delight.

Bai Ming retrieved the flying sword and examined it carefully.

Bai Ming tried to unsheathe the sword but was stopped from an unknown force, the moment his hand got close to the sword there was an ripple in air surrounding it, which pushed back Bai Ming's hand.

Bai Ming's gaze flickered, a smirk appeared in his indifferent face.

"This flying sword is really strange. But the fact there is 6th tier restriction placed around it shows the value of this treasure. I'll first breakthrough to the spirit realm, before studying this restriction and slowly start breaking it step by step."

"Three weeks should be enough to reach spirit realm once again, then I would probably have to spend another fifteen or so days to break this complicated restriction. Then i have to invest another week before completely developing my first sword technique. After all these things are accomplished I will directly head towards the mainlands."