"d.a.m.n…this is poisonous, isn"t it?"

I was aware, after reading in the encyclopedias, that demonic beasts were inedible. Their meat was poisonous. But I had no choice. If I didn"t eat anything, I would starve to death. I might as well risk it and gamble on the astronomical chance that my body was resistant to poison.

There was the option of eating gra.s.s and the leaves from the trees. There were no fruits to pluck, no vegetable-like stuff, but I had tried consuming the gra.s.s and…quite frankly, it was completely useless in sating my hunger. It felt as if the gra.s.s disappeared from my stomach as soon as I swallowed it. I wasn"t sure how it worked, but the gnawing hunger in my stomach told me that the gra.s.s, despite not being poisonous, wasn"t adequate as food. The only option left was to hunt magical beasts and try eating them.

"Besides, this is my fault to begin with. If only I accepted the rations from Teacher Jiao. If only I wasn"t stupid enough to think I didn"t need them…I should have taken the rations…ugh! Then I wouldn"t have to starve to death. Thanks to my shortsightedness and complacency, I put myself in this situation. I"ve no choice but to suffer for it."

Taking a deep breath, I began to mentally steel myself for the torture that was to come. However, my hunger was driving me mad and I had no time to hesitate. Heaving deeply, I bent over and began digging into the Silverback Wolf"s flesh. Tearing out the fur, I began yanking out strips of b.l.o.o.d.y flesh and shoving them into my mouth.

Desperate to sate the hunger in my stomach, I ravenously chewed, swallowed and devoured the entirety of the Silverback Wolf, frantically ripping at its meat with my bloodstained fingers. It was not a pretty sight, and I was pretty sure if anybody from Wu Ling Academy or even the cities on the surface of the Middle Continent was to stumble across me, they would be terrified by my inhuman appearance and behavior. Even my family would be taken aback by the inhuman state I was reduced to.

But I didn"t care.

"Ugh…ack! Yuck! This tastes terrible!"

In the midst of chewing, I gagged and almost threw up. The Silverback Wolf"s meat was tough, stringy and tasted awful. Cursing, I turned away to cough, but forced myself to hold it in. taking a deep breath, I resumed my consumption of the beast. Blood dribbled from my jaw, but I was too absorbed in eating to wipe it off.

This had been my first meal in a week. If I had accepted the rations from Teacher Jiao, perhaps I could survive off them a little longer, but without proper food I had been driven to the point of desperation where eating poisonous meat was my only course of survival.

My stomach, despite constantly crying out for food, rebelled instantly when I swallowed the meat. It was a natural physiological reaction. The body had gotten used to not ingesting anything for so long that it practically forgot how to digest food. Normally, one shouldn"t be eating so much after starving for so long, but I clamped down on the nausea with sheer force of will and ordered it to digest the food I was consuming.

Without these nutrients, I would die.

I had no idea how long had pa.s.sed, but I didn"t care. I ate and ate and ate, until there was nothing left of the Silverback Wolf but its skeleton and fur. My hunger finally sated, I leaned back and relaxed while struggling to control the nausea and sick feeling that now permeated my digestive system. As I suspected, it was foolish of me to consume so much after not eating for so long. I felt like puking, but I swallowed consistently, forcing the food back down.

Like h.e.l.l I was going to throw up and waste everything.

In a while, the nausea vanished. The food had finally settled down in my stomach and at long last I could rest.

Or so I thought, but…

"Ugh?! Argh!"

Intense pain shot through my body, stabbing my gut and expanding exponentially throughout. I collapsed onto the ground and curled into a feral position, clutching my stomach, writhing in excruciating agony.

The poison! The poison has finally taken effect!

Recalling what I had read in the encyclopedia, about how the demonic beast meat was deadly and poisonous to those humans foolish enough to consume them, I began crawling toward the Green Dragon Spring.

This was my solution. Since the Green Dragon Spring could heal any diseases or injuries, it would help me recover from the poison. I knew it would be painful, but given how quick the effects of the miraculous spring was, I would only need to suffer for a short period of time.

"Ugh…cough!"

I desperately plunged my face into the surface of the Green Dragon Spring and swallowed a mouthful of water, drinking until I was on the edge of drowning. The agony subsided for a moment, and my head cleared up enough for me to pull it back up to breathe clean air.

"Huff…huff…good thing I chose to eat here, or I would seriously have died."

Panting, I grimaced at the mere memory of the pain…

"Ugh?! ARGH!"

The agony resumed abruptly, completely catching me off guard. The transient moment of tranquility was blown away by red-hot agony that seared through my gut once again, sinking its fiery claws into every part of my body. Once again, I collapsed onto the ground, thrashing about violently and uncontrollably.

"What"s…what"s happening?! Why isn"t the Green Dragon Spring…kuh! …working?! Ugh! Argh! AAAAAAAAAH!"

I lashed out and caught another mouthful of water, trying to suck it in, hoping that drinking more of the spring would save me. The next thing I knew, the pain subsided just a little and I flopped helplessly on the ground, panting.

But just after a few seconds of restoration, the pain returned in full force. Then I was healed again, only for the agony to a.s.sault me once again.

W…what the h.e.l.l? What the h.e.l.l…is going on?! Ugh!

I floundered about helplessly, even rolling and splashing into the Green Dragon Spring. Was it just me, or was the Green Dragon Spring actually backfiring? If it was just one continuous suffering of agony, then perhaps I would get used to it eventually…my body becoming numb to the constant pain. But the on and off onset of attacks that a.s.sailed me made each fresh wave of agony even more unbearable than the previous one.

I shrieked and yelled, tears flowing from my eyes as I sobbed and begged for the pain to stop. I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to descend into oblivion. Anything…anything, as long as the pain stopped. As long as I received an eternal bliss of nothingness, as long as I no longer suffered, I didn"t care what happened.

Splash!

Waves were sent bursting through the pool as I thrashed about in the Green Dragon Spring, spraying the ground and wetting it. Droplets of water misted about me and I struggled in the depths, but I wasn"t concerned about drowning. Right now I was in too much pain to even consider the danger of drowning. I didn"t even realize that I was gulping down vast amounts of mystical water, which sought to repair my body, only for it to break down from the poison once again.

At that time, I wasn"t aware of it, but at that moment my body was undergoing drastic changes. A biological process named overcompensation, where my physiological deficiencies inspired exaggerated physical corrections. An accelerated growth process where my muscles and skeleton thickened, strengthened and developed.

"Ugh…eh?!"

As I thrashed about, I was vaguely aware of red lines emerging all over my body. The same demonic red lines that infected all the demonic beasts in this level. While still engulfed in a red haze of pain, I struggled to raise my hand through the water to stare at the countless red lines that bulged out of my pale flesh like veins.

Not only that…my arm…looked a little bigger than before. I didn"t remember my arm being of that size…nor did I remember such well-developed muscles, which were slowly growing and becoming firmer as pain continued to rack my body.

Later a.n.a.lysis would have me concluding that I was undergoing a process similar to muscle training, where I destroyed my muscles from strenuous use so that my body would develop stronger and more muscles in order to adapt to the strain I was subjecting them to. My skeleton was undergoing an identical process.

"Huff…huff…argh!"

But the process had been accelerated to a few hundred times, thanks to me ingesting the healing waters of the Green Dragon Spring. It turned out that my solution to use it to heal me of the poison that was demon"s meat had backfired completely, and now I was currently suffering a fate several dozen times worse than death.

As I had read in the encyclopedia, demonic and magical beasts were imbued with demonic or qi cores that provided them energy to reinforce their already outstanding physical attributes with qi techniques or allowed them to cast elemental techniques and qi blasts. Currently, I had consumed the Silverback Wolf"s core along with the meat, and the demonic qi from the core was now deeply permeating my muscles and bones.

Physiologically and phenomenally, this sort of qi circulation and usage was different from how humans used qi. Consequently, my body was being transformed right now, as was my qi and qi circulatory system. Normally, this sort of transformation was undoubtedly lethal to a human. As the encyclopedias had so explicitly explained, the poison from demon meat would break down the human body on a cellular level, utterly destroying the body from the inside out. There were historical accounts of reckless martial artists or arrogant alchemists who attempted to consume demon meat, but every single one of them died without fail, their bodies disintegrating at the cellular level.

The same went for me. If I had just eaten the demonic meat, I would have collapsed and died. However, I had accounted for that and relied on the Green Dragon Spring to keep me alive. After all, it was supposed to be a miraculous treasure that healed all wounds and diseases. Surely poison was nothing compared to its restorative powers?

In theory, anyway. But as I learned from putting it into practical use, it had totally backfired and now I was being put through an experience that was worse than death. I screamed again as red-hot agony lanced through me for the infinite time.

On the other hand, with each restoration, my body was strengthened considerably. As it underwent the long, painful process of repeated destruction and recuperation, new, stronger muscles and skeletons replaced my old, broken ones, and my body was growing more powerful than before at an incredible rate.

It reminded me of the Overhaul Metamorphosis thing (Hwan Gol Tae Tae) that Yi Shioon underwent in a murim manhwa. My body was constantly transformed by the demonic qi that now infused it, which melded and merged with my innate qi system and forcibly changed the const.i.tution of my body. In this way, terms and concepts like Star Const.i.tutions no longer applied to me.

After all, once this was done, I had become an existence that was barely human. There was no way of measuring me using human terms and concepts.

And eventually, the agony ended. After what seemed like an eternity, I no longer felt any pain. I floated on the surface of the spring, unmoving and immobile, staring blankly at the ceiling. The spasms had stopped wrecking my body. The crimson lines continued to bulge visibly against my pale skin, but they no longer pulsed painfully or eerily.

"Ugh…"

My right hand twitched. Taking in a deep breath, I slowly opened my eyes. My gla.s.ses had sank to the bottom of the spring during all that thrashing, but I no longer needed them…for my sight was no longer blurry but clear, sharp and clean. Shaking my head to clear away the last vestiges of phantom pain that continued to linger and haunt me, I slowly swam my way back to the sh.o.r.e.

"Thank You, G.o.d…thank You…the pain is finally gone."

Muttering under my breath, my sanity somewhat snapped from the intense experience, I hauled myself to my feet and staggered ash.o.r.e.

"Phew…"

Regaining my balance, I stretched myself. The horrible ordeal had left me utterly drained and exhausted. On the other hand, my hunger and pain were all completely gone. In fact, my body felt light and robust.

"I knew it…"

I glanced down at my arms. Like I suspected, the growth I saw during the ordeal wasn"t a hallucination. My muscles and body had really developed a lot during that period of unbearable pain. It also seemed that I had grown somewhat taller.

Not only did my body change physically, I also felt strange sensations swirling inside my qi circulatory system. Fiery yang qi clashed with frosty yin qi in weird whirlpools of power, their collisions producing sparks of incredible power that I could tapped in them. h.e.l.l, my qi felt conflicted, and I was a lot more sensitive to the natural essence in the air around me than before. Furthermore, it was a lot easier for me to convert and filter the essence into innate qi.

But there was something ominous and fearsome about the qi flowing through my body.

Is this…demonic qi?

It had to be. There was no other explanation. The demonic qi seemed to be flowing through the crimson lines that were now etched across my skin. I was reminded of the corrupted Silverback Wolves, Lunar Rabbit and Ghost Bear.

I couldn"t help but chortle at the thought. I had enrolled in Wu Ling Academy to train as a martial artist in order to fight against the demonic sects, but I ended up becoming a demon myself. There was some sort of sweet irony about this situation. I wondered what the look on Xiao Zhang"s face would be when he found out about that. Or the entire Martial Arts Alliance in general.

"So what…I"m a demon now?"

Well, I was a failure as a human being, so I honestly wasn"t bothered becoming a demon. Perhaps I could become more popular that way, and finally get my harem of girls like a certain Nagumo Hajime.

So what does this mean for me in terms of cultivation and martial arts?

I had completely no idea. While I could take reference from a certain j.a.panese light novel that started out as a web novel, I didn"t know if there was any precedent for a similar phenomenon in wuxia novels. Probably because I read a lot more j.a.panese light novels than Chinese wuxia ones, despite supposedly being a Chinese. But that was neither here nor there.

"Well, only one way to find out!"

I began testing my footwork techniques. To my surprise, I could execute them a lot better and more fluidly than before. As I mentioned earlier, my body felt a lot lighter and I could therefore cross much vaster distances at a much faster speed than before. I could even practically walk on water, jumping and striking the surface of the spring to propel myself forward at an incredible velocity. That was something I could never do before I consumed the Silverback Wolf.

"What about kicks?"

I returned to my practice area and swung my foot around for the usual roundhouse kick. A light touch sc.r.a.ped past a boulder, but the mere graze completely obliterated the boulder. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped.

"Whoa?! How?!"

I missed because I still hadn"t gotten used to the sensation and feeling of my new body and had misjudged the distance, but even so, to completely obliterate an entire boulder with just a single graze, wasn"t that too exaggerated? I glanced down the row of boulders that marked my week of practice and progress, and clearly enough, right now my kicks were incomparable.

"I might get a kick out of this…"

After practicing a few more kicks and getting amazed at how much destructive power I now possessed, I then sat down and began to meditate. As I suspected, the process of cultivating qi was now slightly different from before. The natural essence came to me more easily, and the conversion to qi was a lot more rapid and reflexive than before.

But what did it mean in terms of elemental manipulation?

"Whoa! I did it! I finally did it!"

Just a day ago, I had failed to use elemental techniques. The best I could do was cause the temperature around me to drop slightly, and maybe wreath my body with a thin and ultimately useless layer of ice.

But now…

"There"s such a huge difference between this and before!"

The amount of ice I could conjure was on a completely different level. Not only could I conjure a much thicker layer of frost armor, I could even freeze the water vapor in the air into whatever shape I wanted. An ice sword, an ice katana, an ice spear, and even an ice axe. As long as I shaped it with my imagination, I was able to produce it in reality.

"Awesome!"

Twirling the ice sword around my fingers, I then grabbed it with both hands and began practicing sword swings.

"Well, it"s unfortunate that I still can"t use long-range ice techniques, though."

Freezing stuff around me into discernible shapes and creating ice armaments and weapons was the first step, but I had yet to reach the level where I could effortlessly fire off a barrage of icicles like the Silverback Wolf. Still, I was confident that I would reach that stage eventually.

"I can"t believe it. I actually managed to succeed in combining what I saw the Ghost Bear used with the Silverback Wolf"s ice techniques."

To be honest, I had been trying to produce the extended ghost claws that the Ghost Bear wielded to kill the Lunar Rabbit and attacked me, but was met with failure this entire time. But now, while I still couldn"t create Ghost Claws, I had used the concept to forge ice weapons.

And it worked!

"This is good. If I can keep this up…eh?"

That was when I realized that I didn"t know any sword techniques. I had learned kicking from Shadow Steps and by imitating the Lunar Rabbit, and furthermore, by running thirty kilometers everyday, I had built up a strong, solid foundation for practicing kicking and having a stable footwork. All those combined, had led to me becoming the person I was today. Even with the demonic metamorphosis, I believed that I wouldn"t be as successful with mastering my footwork techniques and kicking techniques if I hadn"t developed such a solid foundation through running.

Not to mention, that stamina and speed I built up through running and physical training had saved my life while I was escaping from the pursuing Ghost Bear.

"…speaking of which, the Ghost Bear"s movements…if I can copy them, I can develop some sort of swordsmanship?"

I remembered how the Ghost Bear swung its paws. It hadn"t moved as much as the Lunar Rabbit so I couldn"t exactly learn anything other than the wild swinging. But if I could spar with it, perhaps I would be able to learn a lot more, enough data that I could use to create some sort of Ghost Bear Swordsmanship, much like the Lunar Rabbit kicking techniques I was now using?

Well, I"ll leave that for another day. For now…

I was hungry again. This wasn"t good. I didn"t want to eat that terrible-tasting Silverback Wolf meat and go through that h.e.l.lish, agonizing experience again. But it was difficult to find food in this cave. Quite possibly I wouldn"t find anything at all to help me tide over my time here.

But it"s possible that I have developed a resistance to demonic meat after that horrible experience…

I had somewhat transformed into a demon myself, what with these physiological changes, and the red lines on my skin. The excruciating pain was gone too, which could only mean one of two things. Either the poison had finally lost its effect, or my body had eventually developed a resistance to the poison located in the demonic beast"s meat.

To test my theory, I decided to eat another small chunk of Silverback Wolf meat. After all, I had the Green Dragon Spring. While I wasn"t m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic enough to want to go through another round of pain, I wasn"t eager on dying from starvation either. The Green Dragon Spring would help me survive if my theory turned out to be wrong, and I would just find another way to survive. Maybe leave the underground cavern earlier than planned or something. Otherwise…

"Yuck…"

Using a knife sculpted from ice to carve a piece of meat out of the Silverback Wolf"s carca.s.s, I yanked it out and looked at it. For a moment, I just stared at it blankly, reluctant to eat it. The raw meat looked so unappetizing.

Maybe it"ll look better if I cook it?

I reversed the flow of qi, suppressing my yin qi and allowing my yang qi to burst forth. While I couldn"t wield it as much as my yin qi, I was able to produce a small spark of flame. Probably because the Silverback Wolf that I had just consumed had a closer affinity to the ice element than fire element, which explained my greater control over ice.

Using the small flame, I cooked the Silverback Wolf"s meat until it turned from a b.l.o.o.d.y red to a dull brown. Once it was cooked, and before it could blacken from the excessive heat, I pulled it out of the fire and stared at it for a few moments.

After a few seconds of hesitation, I took the plunge and put the chunk of meat in my mouth. I slowly chewed it, paused for another second, and then swallowed it.

Then I waited.

Even after ten minutes, when nothing happened, I finally sighed in relief. It seemed that my theory was correct after all.

That was a huge risk I had taken, to be honest…well, not that huge, considering that I had the Green Dragon Spring right next to me to keep me alive if anything happened. But even then, to risk that colossal pain had to take a certain kind of guts. And it seemed that my gut had gotten used to digesting demonic meat.

Yay…I think?

"Speaking of which, the Silverback Wolf meat actually tastes better cooked," I mused to myself. That was right. After I roasted it, it was a lot more tender and delicious. It wasn"t as difficult to swallow as before, nor was it as foul-tasting. To be honest, I had no idea how much of it was due to me cooking it, and how much of it was due to me developing a tolerance for demonic meat, but I didn"t care. As long as it worked, I was more than happy to work with that.

Sculpting a butcher knife out of ice, I began to work on the other Silverback Wolves" carca.s.ses. After cutting them apart and arranging them into chunks of meat, I began preserving them within ice. It wasn"t the best freezer, but by using my qi, I was able to create huge blocks of ice, within which I began storing the Silverback Wolves" meat. It was at this time that I was thankful that I was able to wield the element of ice more than any other element. None of the other elements, save wood, would have helped me preserve the Silverback Wolves" meat for long. Fire and lightning, particularly, would just increase the speed at which they would spoil.

*

I spent the next few days cultivating and training my new skills while living off the Silverback Wolves" meat that I stored in my makeshift freezer. With the preserved meat stored in ice, there wasn"t a need for me to venture out of my hideout and into the dangerous surface unless absolutely necessary. So I made use of the time to train instead.

"Let"s see…if I can successfully combine my ice elemental techniques with my footwork and kicking techniques, and integrate them together…"

I was practicing in the cave, synergizing my kicking techniques with my footwork techniques and blowing apart rocks and boulders. But right now I was also trying to integrate the ice swordsmanship by speedily creating an ice blade out of thin air and slashing my enemy after using Duo or Liu to ambush them or disrupt their movements.

"I guess it"ll only work if I practice these moves on a real, living opponent…"

And just like Li Fu Chen before me, I recognized the value of gaining real combat experience. After a while, I left the burrow to ambush Silverback Wolves and test out my new moves on them. Slowly, but surely, I was able to improve on my skills, pick out flaws and problems with my current versions, then upgrade them.

I did this for another two weeks, until I could perfectly execute a footwork technique, a kick, and then a merciless slash seamlessly.

With this, I might be able to challenge even the Ghost Bear!

I still wanted to spar with the Ghost Bear, but not because I wanted revenge. Right now I still wasn"t satisfied with my self-developed swordsmanship. It was too raw, amateurish and underdeveloped. To improve it further, I needed to look at how other swordsmen use their swords. I needed to see how the Ghost Bear used its paws and Ghost Claws.

And from there, I could add more patterns and attacks to my roster. I could develop my own style of Ghost Bear Swordsmanship.

Just wait a bit longer, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d…

A smile curled my lips as I vowed to myself.

I"ll be coming for you.