Chapter 12: Born Evil

"Just how many dangers and horrors are lurking in this city... A dead person is just mingling among the crowd like this. I only identified her because I happened to know Liu Yan, but I don't know most of the others. Among those people, how many might have problems?"

"That Liu Yan doesn't seem to have targeted me. It was too dangerous just now; if I were targeted by such a bizarre thing in my current state, I would definitely be dead for sure."

With this chilling thought, Li Yi quickly walked toward his home. He planned to hide at home for a while and use the mystic object in his hand to accelerate his cultivation progress in a short time, gaining some power for self-preservation.

As for whether cultivating too quickly would bring any trouble, he couldn't care that much.

He closed the door and locked it immediately.

After replacing the nutrient solution in his parents' medical pods, Li Yi turned off his phone to avoid being disturbed. He then went to the living room, sat down with his eyes closed, and adjusted his breathing to quickly enter a state of meditation.

Once in meditation.

Li Yi sensed the energy field radiating from the knife coin. He began to guide the pure cosmic energy from that energy field into his body and then absorbed it.

At first, he was still slightly clumsy, but as time passed, his speed in guiding the energy became faster and faster, and his success rate in absorption was constantly rising.

Just as Lin Yue had estimated, Li Yi still had potential to be tapped.

In just half a day, his cultivation value reached sixty percent.

This value meant that for every ten units of cosmic energy, six could be successfully absorbed by him, and only four would be wasted.

Such a rate of progress was due to the half-section of the knife coin in his hand. Because he possessed this incomplete mystic object, Li Yi didn't need to spend time and energy capturing the cosmic energy leaking from the wormhole.

Without the need to be distracted, focusing on one thing naturally allowed him to do it better.

"Gurgle!"

Li Yi was woken up by hunger once again. He opened his eyes with some helplessness: "Sure enough, hunger really affects cultivation. I've been woken up by hunger three times in this half-day. If I were to cultivate for a whole day, wouldn't I be woken up six times? Plus, I'd have to spend time cooking and eating... It's too much of a delay."

"Right, let's try the efficacy of the No. 2 nutrient solution this time."

Li Yi took out the No. 2 nutrient solution and glanced at the instructions, discovering that ordinary people were forbidden from consuming this stuff, and even those who cultivated shouldn't drink too much at once, otherwise, it would burden the body's organs and produce side effects similar to food poisoning.

He carefully poured a cup using a measuring cup and drank it down according to the instructions.

"Sweet, and it's apple-flavored." Li Yi licked the cup; this stuff wasn't cheap, so he couldn't waste it.

Although he only drank a small cup, the hunger in his body was rapidly disappearing.

It was incredible.

One had to know that when Li Yi got hungry, he would need to eat several packs of dried noodles, along with sugar water, milk, eggs, fruit, and so on to fill his stomach.

"Sure enough, there's a reason why it's expensive. Nutrient solution is so convenient; I don't even want to cook and eat anymore. It's too much of a waste of time and energy."

Li Yi thought to himself, and then he began to cultivate again.

In the subsequent cultivation process, he discovered that drinking nutrient solution kept him full longer than eating food. Previously, he had to eat a meal every four hours; now, he only felt hungry after cultivating for eight hours.

Calculating this way, he only needed to drink three cups of nutrient solution a day.

But one bottle of No. 2 nutrient solution only contained ten cups, meaning it would be finished in three days, which made Li Yi feel that cultivation was truly burning money.

However, he wasn't considering these things right now.

A day of cultivation ended quickly.

Li Yi rested for a while, took a shower, cleaned off the grime excreted through his pores after his body evolved, and then began a new round of cultivation.

He could now clearly feel that his physical fitness had undergone a leap-forward improvement.

Only his ears began to buzz, as if he were experiencing auditory hallucinations.

Li Yi understood that this wasn't an auditory hallucination, but rather his senses undergoing a transformation; his hearing was strengthening, but his body needed time to adapt during this process.

Soon.

Cultivation reached the third day.

And during this period, Li Yi's cultivation value increased again. This time, the cultivation value went directly from sixty percent to seventy-five percent, and this value was still slowly increasing, though not as obviously as before, which indicated that his potential had been tapped almost to the limit.

"My cultivation value will reach at most around eighty-five percent at the very end, and that's only if I don't need to be distracted. If I didn't have the help of this incomplete mystic object, my cultivation value would probably drop to around sixty-five percent. Lin Yue's assessment of me is very accurate."

Li Yi pondered in his heart: "But I'm already very satisfied if I can reach eighty percent. At the very least, this value is considered excellent among cultivators and won't be too lackluster."

Slowly closing his eyes, he entered meditation again.

"What's going on? The energy field of that incomplete knife coin feels a bit off today."

Suddenly.

Li Yi, in the midst of cultivation, sensed something unusual. The originally calm cosmic energy was now rippling, and then the movement became larger and larger, as if a huge storm had been stirred up.

This anomaly even made it impossible for Li Yi to smoothly guide the cosmic energy into his body.

He wanted to wake up from his meditation.

However, Li Yi discovered with astonishment that his consciousness seemed to be pulled by that incomplete knife coin, trapped, unable to break free, and even less able to wake up.

This was the first time he had encountered such a mutation, and he felt inexplicably panicked at this moment.

"There's a problem with this incomplete knife coin." At this moment, Li Yi remembered Lin Yue's words.

Since the mystic object was incomplete, it must have some kind of defect or problem.

At this moment, his consciousness was trapped in the energy field of the incomplete knife coin, without the slightest ability to resist, and he could only watch as various changes appeared around him.

Soon.

As the energy fluctuations grew larger, in Li Yi's perception, it was as if something had surged out from the depths of that pure cosmic energy field, and then the surrounding energy frantically gathered toward a single point. In a short while, it actually formed an incomplete humanoid creature.

Then, that humanoid creature gradually condensed into shape within the energy field, having a vague body and facial features, but its lower body remained missing, just like that knife coin, broken into two sections.

"What is that thing?" Li Yi felt an inexplicable fear at this moment.

Just by perceiving it with his consciousness, he felt a stinging pain.

It was as if his soul were about to be torn apart.

That incomplete person seemed to possess consciousness; it immediately discovered Li Yi's consciousness and then roared, opening its mouth as it pounced over, seemingly wanting to swallow his consciousness.

"Born evil Earth Prisoner, even if this old man only has a wisp of remnant soul left, I will kill you..."

Li Yi had no power to resist, and then a wave of intense dizziness washed over him. His consciousness felt as if it had suffered a heavy blow, and it was quickly enveloped by a mass of darkness.

"Pain, it's too painful."

He passed out directly.

Just as Li Yi was passing out, the bedroom door behind his parents suddenly creaked and slowly opened.

A figure was projected from the room under the illumination of the lights, and that figure rapidly elongated in an incredible way, finally enveloping Li Yi's body.

The incomplete knife coin beside Li Yi actually bent strangely, as if influenced by a huge unknown force, and then, accompanied by a faint, terrified scream, this knife coin was sent flying, embedding itself deeply into the wall beside it, completely still.

Afterward, the black figure projected from the bedroom quickly retracted.

"Bang!"

The door closed, the lights in the living room flickered, and finally went out completely.

Everything in the old house fell into a deathly silence.

And as time passed, Li Yi's breathing, as he lay unconscious, gradually stabilized, only blood was slowly flowing from his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth.

As time ticked by, second by second.

The night outside the window turned into day, and then entered deep night again.

Li Yi had been unconscious for two full days.

By noon on the third day, he slowly woke up.

"Pain, hiss..." Li Yi clutched his head; the intense pain made him gasp.

What happened? Why did he pass out while cultivating so well?

Right, he remembered.

That incomplete knife coin...

He woke up in a start, looked left and right, and finally found the half-section of the knife coin on the wall of his home.

Li Yi didn't go to pick up that thing immediately, but felt lingering fear. He clearly remembered his consciousness being trapped by the energy field of the knife coin, and then another very powerful and terrifying consciousness emerged from the knife coin, wanting to kill him.

"Born evil Earth Prisoner? How did a fine young man like me, who works hard to support his family, become born evil?"

He had suffered such a big loss for no reason, and was both angry and annoyed.

But after this incident, Li Yi understood that there seemed to be the resentment of some dead person stored within this incomplete knife coin; in that person's words, it was a wisp of remnant soul.

"Sure enough, grave goods from a tomb are not good things." Li Yi stood up, his body staggering, a wave of dizziness hitting him.

"But why was there no problem when I used the knife coin for cultivation before, but this time I was targeted by the resentful remnant soul stored on the knife coin? Could it be because I cultivated for too long this time?"

His expression changed uncertainly, and looking at the knife coin embedded in the wall before him, he didn't know how to deal with it for a moment.

If he encountered such a thing again next time he cultivated, Li Yi really didn't have the confidence to survive; he didn't want to experience that feeling again.

But this incomplete mystic object was the key to his cultivation; if he didn't continue to use it, it would be difficult for him to continue making progress.

"This is probably the pros and cons of an incomplete mystic object. On one hand, it can accelerate my cultivation, but on the other hand, it hides huge dangers. To use it, I must find a relatively safe method." Li Yi thought for a moment. He still didn't want to discard this thing, determined to linger on the edge of danger and find a way to use this incomplete mystic object.

Cultivating on his own was too slow.

In the few days he had possessed the mystic object, Li Yi could clearly feel that he was making astonishing progress every day.

After experiencing the taste of being a genius, he naturally wasn't willing to return to mediocrity. ===== CHAPTER 13 =====