It had been twenty days since the brutal beast attack, and Airan was finally whole again.
Thanks to the medicinal course of pills, his leg was completely healed, and his Dantian operated as smoothly as before.
In truth, his long-standing inability to afford pills had been a blessing in disguise.
Low-grade cultivation pills cost ten spirit stones each, and merchants never sold them individually—they demanded a full bottle of ten pills for one hundred spirit stones, requiring a cultivator to consume one every single day.
While those pills offered a quick boost to cultivation, they left stubborn toxins behind in the meridians and permanently thinned a cultivator’s Qi.
Because Airan had never touched one, his natural Qi remained thick, dense, and pure.
That density was the exact reason he had been stuck at Qi Level 3 for years without resources, but it had also forged a formidable foundation.
During the beast attack, that same thick Qi had been pushed to its absolute limit when he forced every drop out in a single desperate surge to save his life.
That massive strain had triggered a subtle mini-breakthrough, placing him on the absolute verge of breaking through to Qi Level 4.
His financial situation was improving just as steadily.
Airan now possessed twenty-four spirit stones in total, with only sixteen spirit stones remaining to reach his ultimate dream of acquiring the distillation tool, leaving fifteen more days to go.
He was genuinely happy, and the puppy shared his joy.
Fed on the same premium spiritual rice that Airan ate, the young dog was growing taller and sturdier than any average canine of its age.
By this point, Airan had culled approximately two hundred cave rets from the limestone warrens.
On this day, Airan was hunting deep within the cave system when the ground suddenly began to shake.
From the deepest shadows of a wide fissure, a massive shape erupted upward—a rat king, easily tripling the size of the ordinary rets.
Airan tightened his grip on his spiritual energy, his hands bare and empty of any steel weapon, his stance low and grounded in the damp limestone dirt.
Across the cavern floor, the massive rat king hissed, green venom dripping from its jagged fangs and sizzling against the rock.
Its crimson eyes locked onto him with cunning intent.
“Fast… even faster than a standard fourth-layer,” Airan muttered, his breath hitching as he felt the searing heat of the creature’s last spray graze his shoulder.
The beast didn’t wait.
With a deafening screech that echoed off the stone walls, it vanished into a blur of grey fur, lunging straight for his throat.
Airan didn’t even consider trying to plant his feet for a static defense.
Instead, he channeled his dense, heavy Qi straight into his legs.
As the beast closed the distance, spitting a blinding arc of green venom across a five-meter span, Airan triggered Fire Step.
Whoosh.
He vaulted sideways in a violent blur of motion, the caustic acid scorching the rock exactly where he had stood a heartbeat before.
But the rat king anticipated the dodge, whipping its massive tail around like a steel cable.
“Got you,” Airan gritted through the pain as the tail slammed into his ribs, driving the air from his lungs.
Skidding across the rough floor, he tasted copper.
He was only at the third layer of Qi, outmatched in speed and brute output, but his foundation—heavy and pure from a lifetime of avoiding toxic pills—gave his bare-handed strikes an unyielding bite. Find the original chapter at novelping(.)com.
The rat king screeched in triumph, rearing back to deliver a fatal venom-spit point-blank.
Airan’s eyes flared.
He didn’t step back; he stepped in.
With no blade to rely on, he compressed his dense Qi into the palm of his hand, shaping the raw energy into a condensed, razor-edged spiritual strike.
“Let’s see how much poison you spit,” Airan shouted, his voice cutting through the dark.
With a fierce, driving thrust of his palm, he slammed his condensed Qi straight into the monster’s open maw.
Squelch.
The concentrated spiritual pressure tore through the soft tissue, bypassing the beast’s tough outer hide entirely and destroying its internal core.
The rat king convulsed, letting out a choked, bubbling shriek before collapsing into the dirt with a heavy, final thud.
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Airan stumbled back against the cave wall, chest heaving, clutching his bleeding side.
He knelt beside the massive carcass, harvesting three spirit stones from the rat king alone, along with another six normal cave rets he had cleared during the chaos, bringing his total haul for the day to nine spirit stones.
Standing in the dim cavern with his pouch heavy, Airan wiped the sweat from his brow and smiled.
“Nine spirit stones,” he puffed, a soft laugh escaping his lips.
“Not a bad day’s work.”
Author’s Note: Thanks for reading Chapter 7!
Airan’s journey from a penniless herb collector to a spirit distiller starts here.