Chapter 202: Cave Stronghold

Seeing that Shen Ping was determined to leave, Duan Rong immediately shouted at his retreating back: "Old Shen, there are many fierce beasts in the mountains; let me see you out."

"No need!" Shen Ping replied. Almost as the words were spoken, one could see his sleeve rise and flick, releasing a faint white mist that drifted along with the wind.

Duan Rong's heart skipped a beat; he immediately executed the Cloud Snake Step to leap several yards away, holding his breath as he stood.

Shen Ping was a fellow of the ultimate Poison Path; how could he dare to touch the Poison Powder he scattered?

I was kind enough to want to see him out of the mountains, fearing his dantian might be crippled or he might fall victim to fierce beasts, but it seems that was truly unnecessary. How could I have forgotten that this old fellow is a master of using poison? How could ordinary beasts ever do anything to him?

Duan Rong leaped away, and the white mist—which was actually a very faint white smoke—was dispersed by the wind and drifted into the woods beside the cliff.

Barely a breath later, the woods nearby began to rain down insects, snakes, and birds, falling like dumplings...

Watching the cicadas, snakes, and birds falling in the woods beside him, Duan Rong's face instantly turned the color of a pig's liver. This Poison Powder was unexpectedly this violent!

Duan Rong's blood surged, and he shouted at Shen Ping's back: "You old bastard, if you had hit me with that, what would I have done?"

Hearing this, Shen Ping did not even turn his head, only letting out a series of strange, cackling laughs: "If I had hit you, wouldn't you have just eaten one of the pills I gave you?"

"Damn it!" Duan Rong muttered in frustration.

Shen Ping's voice was already somewhat ethereal by now, his figure appearing and disappearing among the trees until he could no longer be seen...

Duan Rong stood there, his gaze clear and steady, looking for a long time in the direction where Shen Ping's figure had vanished.

Although he had not spent much time with this old man, Duan Rong felt that he and the old man were quite compatible in temperament.

Shen Ping had a stubborn streak just like Xiao Zongting, but he also possessed a certain righteous-yet-wicked rogue charm.

Duan Rong stood for a while, watching the trees rustle; a sense of loneliness rose in his heart. He sighed, then turned his head to look at a certain spot on the cliff; beneath that cliff was where Shen Ping's cave was located.

Duan Rong's figure flickered, and with a flash, he vanished from the cliff.

Duan Rong arrived back inside the cave. The moment he stood at the cave entrance, his mind stirred and his Divine Sense was suddenly released.

Instantly, every object, large or small, within the cave appeared before his eyes.

Duan Rong's figure moved like a ghost, flickering within the cave.

He suddenly grabbed a stone pestle for grinding medicine in a dark corner of the cave. Duan Rong's eyes flashed, and he silently recited in his heart: "Spirit Reader."

Looking at the data panel that appeared before him, Duan Rong felt a sudden surge of joy and said: "Devour!"

As the data panel before his eyes flickered and dissipated, Duan Rong moved again. He suddenly stood in another part of the cave and, from the cluttered Stone Table and the items piled upon it, picked up a dagger. The dagger was only four or five inches long, its surface stained with something unknown; it was mottled with marks, but they were definitely not rust.

In the pitch-black cave, Duan Rong's eyes flickered, and he thought to himself: "Spirit Reader."

After one breath, Duan Rong devoured the dagger's Artifact Spirit and his figure flickered again, appearing beside the stone bed at the very back of the cave. On the stone bed, there was actually a pillow made from the large bone of some unknown animal.

The pillow was covered in grease stains, clearly having been used for who knows how many years.

Duan Rong's eyes showed surprise, and he secretly called Shen Laotou eccentric; he wouldn't even be afraid of having nightmares while using such a pillow.

Duan Rong picked up the bone pillow and thought: "Spirit Reader."

After Duan Rong devoured it, his figure flickered again.

Shen Ping had lived in this cave for nearly twenty years; one could imagine the sheer number of miscellaneous items inside.

There were many items that Shen Ping had used for a full twenty years, and his painstaking insights were all soaked into the Artifact Spirits of these objects.

Duan Rong spent nearly half an hour devouring every single item in the cave, regardless of size.

Better to kill by mistake than to let one go!

After the devouring was finished, Duan Rong began to search through the cave's items and categorize them.

He planned to use this cave as his own stronghold in Wild Boar Mountain in the future.

If there were any disturbances in Xiangu County, he could find a way to escape the county seat, slip into Wild Boar Mountain, and hide in the cave; who would be able to find him then?

After Xu Ruhu and Xie Lei erupted, Xie Daohan had long since discovered clues about the Corpse Rot Poison, but at that time, Shen Ping was hiding in this mountain cave; how could Xie Daohan have tracked him?

If it weren't for the fact that this old man, having exhausted his heart's blood to develop the Red of the First Grade, still couldn't suppress experts of the True Qi Realm, he wouldn't have felt so despondent and run down the mountain to the Gou Lan Yuan to vent, and how could Xie Daohan and Fan Yuanhai have caught him?

Duan Rong busied himself for a while, roughly dividing the items in the cave into four categories.

The first category was daily miscellaneous items. Duan Rong sifted through these, keeping what could be used—after all, he might live here in the future—and throwing away everything that was already broken.

The second category was various processed and unprocessed medicinal herbs. Unlike the chaotic pile of miscellaneous items, Shen Ping had already categorized and organized these very well. In this regard, Duan Rong did not need to do anything and simply inherited them as they were.

There was another category: finished medicines and poisons. Duan Rong took a look and found there were more than a dozen bottles, most of which he did not recognize.

When Shen Ping left, the poison and antidote for the Red of the First Grade he gave him were clearly just the most urgent matters he had entrusted to him. As for these finished medicines and poisons refined by Shen Ping, they were certainly not ordinary items, but he would need to slowly learn and explore them.

The final category consisted of Shen Ping's scattered notes and some Medical Path books that had been flipped through until they were worn out.

What Duan Rong cherished most were the three notebooks Shen Ping had left behind; the paper and handwriting in the three notebooks were slightly different, clearly not from the same period.

After organizing the cave, Duan Rong took the three notebooks, sat at the cave entrance, and began to read by the light of day.

Duan Rong first browsed through them quickly and soon discovered that the latter part of one notebook recorded the relationship between medicinal properties and the circulation of a Martial Artist's Internal Breath. Duan Rong immediately felt as if he had found a treasure and began to read it word for word.

Duan Rong sat at the cave entrance, reading from the bright daylight until the light grew dim.

By the time dusk fell, he had spent several hours and had only managed to read two pages.

Moreover, there were many places he pondered repeatedly, yet found it difficult to grasp their profound meaning.

This could not entirely be blamed on Duan Rong; Duan Rong was already a Martial Artist who had achieved the Inner Breath Realm Third Layer, and he already had a certain level of attainment in identifying the properties of various medicines. It stood to reason that he should have been able to understand these notes on the relationship between medicinal properties and Internal Breath circulation.

However, Shen Ping's notes actually had many vague and unclear parts; he had not originally recorded these notes for others to read, but merely as a record of his own fragmented, trivial thoughts.

They were originally disjointed and lacked any system.

Seeing that dusk had already gathered in the valley, a sense of fatigue suddenly welled up in Duan Rong's mind.

He had devoured many Artifact Spirits, which inherently required digestion and absorption. Although his discomfort after devouring had greatly diminished since he achieved the second layer of the Womb Treasury Sutra, he had not rested after devouring, but instead had fallen into deep thought for a long time to read the notes...

At this moment, seeing dusk gathering and the light dimming, he suddenly emerged from his deep state of thought, and a sharp pain surged through his Divine Soul.

Duan Rong closed the notebook and walked in the dark to the stone bed at the very back of the cave. He lay down on the hard stone bed, resting his head on the bone pillow that had been polished to a shine by Shen Ping, and instantly fell into a deep sleep.

(End of chapter)