After some effort, Anton finally finished harvesting the valuable materials from the Scale Rock Lizard’s body, placing them all into his storage talisman.
He then immediately began his next hunt.
As he had expected, the Cold Abyss Sword was indeed the bane of the Scale Rock Lizards.
The extreme cold qi from his sword techniques caused the Scale Rock Lizards’ blood to stagnate and their organs to fail. Their movements became noticeably slow and stiff, and they couldn’t hold out for long before Anton cut them down.
His hunting efficiency skyrocketed.
Although he had to stop several times to circulate his Cultivation Technique and recover his Spiritual Qi, by the time a golden-red hue appeared on the horizon, Anton had collected enough lizard meat, scales, and blood to fill an entire storage talisman.
Seeing that it was getting late, Anton stopped hunting. He found a spot sheltered from the wind, with giant rocks on three sides, and prepared to spend the night there.
He sat down cross-legged, took some prepared firewood from his storage talisman, and piled it into a campfire. With a flick of his finger, a wisp of Fire Attribute Spiritual Qi shot from his fingertip. CHISS! With a soft sound, the dry wood instantly burst into orange-red flames.
The flickering firelight cast long shadows on the rock walls.
Anton took out a hind leg from a Scale Rock Lizard, skewered it on a sharpened branch, and held it over the fire to roast.
The meat sizzled in the heat. As fat dripped down and kicked up sparks, he occasionally sprinkled on salt and spices.
He had stocked plenty of these seasonings in his storage talisman. After all, blood-food body tempering required one to eat in large quantities, and it would be hard to swallow without some flavor.
As soon as the meat was roasted to be crisp on the outside and tender on the inside, he immediately took huge bites. In no time, the entire hind leg was in his stomach.
Feeling the fullness in his stomach, Anton wasted no time and immediately began to circulate the "Abyssal Sea Swallowing Technique."
This was the most supreme blood-food body tempering method recorded in the Taoist Jade Scroll.
It took its name from the idea of "a whale swallowing all creation and returning it to the abyssal sea." The technique created an invisible vortex within the Dantian, which would grind, smelt, and purify the ingested Spirit Beast flesh—skin, bones, and all. It then transformed this into the purest essence of qi and blood to nourish the physical body.
As the Cultivation Technique began to circulate, a low rumble emanated from Anton’s abdomen, like the breathing of an ancient leviathan slumbering at the bottom of the sea.
He could clearly feel the beast meat in his stomach being rapidly broken down into the finest particles. It transformed into warm wisps of qi and blood essence that flowed like trickling streams into his limbs and throughout his body.
While circulating the Cultivation Technique to digest the food, Anton continued to roast more meat.
The moment a piece of meat was cooked, he would immediately devour it, providing more fuel for the Cultivation Technique.
More than an hour later, after the meat of an entire Scale Rock Lizard had been completely digested, Anton’s body finally felt a faint sense of fullness. He was like an earthenware jar filled to the brim, ready to overflow at any moment.
’This is the limit.’
Anton stopped eating and closed his eyes, sensing the changes within his body.
His qi and blood were abundant, and his meridians felt swollen. The Taichu Spiritual Qi in his Dantian even seemed a little more active than usual.
He tried circulating the Taichu Hiding Skill and found that his efficiency in refining Spiritual Qi through respiration had indeed improved.
The improvement wasn’t drastic, but it was definitely there.
’If I use the Abyssal Sea Swallowing Technique to refine a Scale Rock Lizard every day...’
Anton calculated silently, and a delighted smile spread across his face.
At this rate, he could refine a wisp of Taichu Spiritual Qi in about two and a half years.
His cultivation speed was now more than fifty percent faster than before.
The blood-food body tempering method truly yielded amazingly fast results.
The path of cultivation was a long, arduous grind. Any method that could shorten the process was incredibly precious.
By the time he was done, the sky had grown almost completely dark.
The distant mountain peaks turned into dark silhouettes, with only the last sliver of crimson lingering on the horizon.
Anton added a few pieces of wood to the fire. Just as he was about to enter a meditative state to cultivate, he suddenly heard footsteps approaching in the distance.
"That spot up ahead looks good. Let’s stay there for the night."
"Huh? There’s a fire. Someone’s already there."
As the voices spoke, five figures appeared in Anton’s sight.
Four of them, three men and a woman, were dressed in typical Adventurer gear. Their leather armor was covered in scratches and patches, and an assortment of weapons—from shortswords and War Axes to hand crossbows—hung at their waists, clinking softly as they walked.
Their posture was relaxed yet vigilant, a quality unique to those who spent their lives making a living in the wilderness.
The last person was a slender human male of about forty. He wore a faded gray robe and carried no weapons, with only a leather satchel slung over his shoulder. Looking more like a scholar than an Adventurer, he seemed completely out of place with the other four.
Seeing that Anton was alone, the group of five was visibly taken aback.
To find a lone traveler in the Thousand Rock Hills, a place teeming with Scale Rock Lizards, meant one of two things: this person was either a reckless novice who had been lucky enough not to become lizard food yet, or they were an expert with absolute confidence in their own strength.
Either way, it was best not to get involved.
The middle-aged man who seemed to be the group’s leader gave Anton an apologetic smile and was about to lead his teammates away, but then he heard Anton speak.
"If you don’t mind, feel free to sit and rest a while."
Anton said calmly, gesturing to the campfire in front of him.
The middle-aged leader was about to politely decline, but the scholar-like man had already walked forward and plopped down in front of the campfire.
"We’ve been on the road for so long. I’m tired. Let’s just rest here tonight."
The middle-aged leader frowned. Seeing that the scholar had already taken out his own dry rations to soften by the fire, he could only sigh to himself. He swallowed the words he was about to say and turned to force a smile at Anton.
"Thank you. Sorry for the intrusion."
He then motioned for his teammates to sit down around the campfire.
"Are you from Bishui Port?" Anton asked, his tone as casual as if he were just making small talk.
There were only two human cities in the vicinity of the Thousand Rock Hills.
One was Kresol Dragon City, and the other was Bishui Port.
In Kresol Dragon City, humans had a very low status; most were artisans and farmers serving the Dragon Race. It was rare for any Adventurer to make a living there.
Bishui Port, on the other hand, was a human-dominated port city with heavy foot traffic and thriving commerce—a paradise for Adventurers.
Therefore, it was highly likely that this team of Adventurers came from Bishui Port.
Sure enough, the middle-aged leader nodded. "That’s right."
Perhaps seeing how peaceful Anton was, the middle-aged leader gradually let down his guard and began to chat with him.
This was exactly what Anton had intended.
He had started playing *Dawn Annals* during version 3.0, so his knowledge of the first two versions was limited to secondhand information he’d picked up from browsing forums.
His in-game knowledge gave him a macroscopic perspective, but when it came to the actual reality of this world, there were many details he was ignorant of.
In the Silver Moon Forest, the Elf elders rarely spoke to the younger generation about the outside world, fearing it would fill them with a longing to venture out and encounter danger.
To this day, Anton only knew about the general locations and cities around the Silver Moon Forest; he had no way of learning any specifics.
That was why he had proactively invited the adventurer team to stay—to seize the opportunity to gather more intelligence.
Through their conversation, Anton learned that the middle-aged leader was named Harvey, a veteran Adventurer with twenty years of experience.
The scholar was named Casius, a mineral appraiser who lived in Bishui Port.
He was the one who had hired Harvey’s team to escort him into the Thousand Rock Hills in search of a rare ore.
Anton then introduced himself. When they heard him give his name as "Canglan," all five of them were stunned.
Vergil, the only girl in the group, remarked in surprise, "That’s... a pretty unique name."
"It’s alright, I suppose."
Anton smiled faintly and thought to himself, ’If I wasn’t afraid of standing out too much, I would’ve just called myself Li Xiaoyao.’