「One month ago.」

The previous Hall Master, Document, and two Instructors of Tan County suddenly vanished without a trace—no living person, no dead body.

A month later, the case remains unsolved.

The upper echelons of the White Whale Martial Arts Hall were also evasive about the matter.

An ominous place...

Tch.

Wu Dao put away the Token and sneered. He knew full well that his assignment to Tan City was the Elder Council’s doing.

But for some reason,

Qi Canghai hadn’t intervened. It seemed he intentionally wanted Wu Dao to clash with the Elder Council, to see what he was capable of.

However...

Both sides were unaware.

What was an ominous place to them was a free buffet for Wu Dao!

The only unfortunate part was,

He didn’t know what kind of anomaly was causing trouble in Tan County, how strong it was, or where it was hiding.

On this matter,

It seemed Qi Canghai had issued a strict order that not a single detail was to be revealed.

But it didn’t matter.

’I’ll investigate carefully once I’m there. There are bound to be clues. I refuse to believe I won’t find anything.’

However,

Before going to Tan City to take up his post, there was one more thing to take care of.

Elder Qin’s face appeared in his mind.

Killing intent began to simmer within Wu Dao. Today, he had well and truly made a mortal enemy of Elder Qin.

The kind with no room for reconciliation.

The man would surely stop at nothing to get his revenge in the future!

As the saying goes,

A thief can steal for a thousand days,

But you can’t guard against a thief for a thousand days!

He couldn’t possibly spare the energy to be on guard against that old bastard every day. Therefore, he had to strike first!

At the banquet, with so many people, gossip spread quickly.

The clash between Elder Qin and Wu Dao, which had made them enemies, was already a hot topic of gossip.

Wu Dao’s perception was exceptionally keen. From the circulating gossip, he learned the location of the old bastard’s residence. All he had to do was wait for a dark and stormy night to strike!

Normally,

He had just made an enemy of Elder Qin during the day.

This wasn’t the ideal time to strike, as suspicion would easily fall on him, and killing a fellow member was forbidden within the White Whale Martial Arts Hall.

However,

Wu Dao was not worried about this.

Because compared to other Dark Force Martial Artists who had undergone a Second Rebirth, his cultivation of the Essence Devouring Art gave him an advantage no one else possessed—

Blood and Flesh Spirit!

By using the Spiritual Thoughts spread throughout his body to control the microscopic growth and changes in his tissues, he could easily transform into a completely different person from head to toe.

This kind of ability,

In the Martial Dao system, could only be achieved by a Transformed Martial Artist who had undergone a Third Rebirth.

Of course,

This wasn’t to say that Wu Dao’s strength could match those at the Transforming Force Realm.

The reason he could do what only a Transformed Martial Artist could was actually because he did not have a Dantian.

Every increase in Power and spirit would directly feed back into his physical body.

That’s why, just after entering the Heroic Domain, he possessed Blood and Flesh Spirit and Spirit Armor, two abilities that belonged to the Transforming Force and Dark Force realms respectively.

It was different in the Martial Dao.

After Breaking the Cocoon, a Martial Artist opens their Qi Sea Dantian, and the focus of their cultivation shifts to condensing Dantian Essence Blood. The more Essence Blood, the stronger the Martial Artist.

Under these circumstances,

The various miraculous changes to the body and spirit would naturally be a step slower than the Essence Devouring System, which purely enhanced the physique.

However,

Compared to the methodical Martial Dao,

Although the Essence Devouring System’s method of increasing strength took an unorthodox path, being fast and direct, each advancement was a life-or-death test of the Limit for the spirit and body.

If you pass, you successfully shatter your shackles and steal more potential. If you fail, your body perishes and your Dao vanishes, with no second chances!

Not to mention,

The cultivation of the Essence Devouring Art was like a Taotie, consuming massive amounts of resources at every step. The difficulty and danger of advancement far exceeded the Martial Dao.

KNOCK KNOCK...

Just as Wu Dao was mentally simulating how to kill Elder Qin quickly and efficiently, a knock suddenly sounded from outside, interrupting his thoughts.

With a sweep of his senses,

The appearance of the person outside the door entered his mind.

Wu Dao’s expression showed no surprise. "Come in," he said calmly.

CREAK...

After the door opened,

A young man in white with a wolf-tail braid walked in. Making himself right at home, he poured a cup of tea, caught his breath, and said to Wu Dao:

"Whew! Hall Master, about those medicinal herbs you asked me to procure... I had to haggle for ages, but I finally pre-ordered them at the lowest possible price.

They will be delivered to the post station outside the city tomorrow morning."

This handsome, wolf-braided young man was none other than the thick-skinned and talkative Zhao Jianji whom Wu Dao had met at the city gate the day before.

It was hard to say if it was his jinxing mouth,

Or his ’good’ luck.

After successfully distinguishing himself in the assessment as a Divine Power Realm cultivator, he, like Wu Dao, was assigned to Tan County to serve as the Document.

The position of Document,

To put it bluntly, was the Hall Master’s secretary.

Normally, besides making decisions on the general direction of the martial hall’s development, the Hall Master was basically a Stabilizing Needle-type role, meant to deter all sorts of local characters.

The rest of the matters within the martial hall’s jurisdiction—personnel, logistics, finance, strategy...

All these miscellaneous things were handled by the Document, who then just needed the Hall Master’s nod of approval.

It had to be said,

The White Whale Martial Arts Hall setting up such a Master-like position in every hall was quite a good idea.

Those who could serve as Hall Masters,

Were all outstanding figures on the path of the Martial Dao. If not martial fanatics, they were at least people who focused most of their thoughts on cultivation and self-improvement.

The numerous affairs of a single hall’s territory...

If all these duties fell on the Hall Master, it might be manageable for a smaller hall. But for a larger one with nearly a thousand members and all their assorted issues, they’d be hounded by trivialities day in and day out. What time would be left for cultivation?

"Mm, well done."

After listening to Zhao Jianji’s report, which was delivered as if seeking credit, Wu Dao nodded faintly and offered some verbal encouragement.

He had previously accumulated nearly twenty thousand taels in silver banknotes.

Adding the gifts from people at the banquet tonight, the total value was no less than thirty thousand taels of silver.

After the banquet ended,

He had sent Zhao Jianji to contact the major medicinal merchants in the city—who were, in fact, the high-level personnel of the White Whale Martial Arts Hall—to pre-order a batch of precious medicinal herbs. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Essence Devouring Cultivation in the Heroic Domain...

Ordinary food could no longer meet the needs of his training. Each cultivation session required a large amount of high-energy medicinal power to stimulate the life potential of his body’s cells on a deep level.

In his previous life,

Biotechnology was advanced, and there were biological potions refined from various materials to supply Heaven Stealers for their cultivation.

A single nutrient potion for the Heroic Domain,

Cost no less than several million!

It was even more exaggerated after the Overlord Domain.

The price of a single cultivation dose reached the tens of millions!

However,

After reaching the Overlord Domain,

A Heaven Stealer’s physique would be so powerful that their cells possessed a very vigorous "Biological Magnetic Field."

Using this Biological Magnetic Field, they could refine ’Wanyu Treasure Liquid’ from nature themselves, somewhat like the legendary Alchemy, without having to squander tens or hundreds of millions.

In this life, time and space had shifted.

He had arrived in a vast Extraordinary World.

Although he no longer had the hardcore tech from his past life, the age and medicinal properties of the herbs in this world mostly surpassed those of his previous one.

Some of the particularly precious ones,

Had the medicinal power of a single stalk that was no less than a concentrated nutrient potion.

The price was just a bit steep.

Don’t be fooled by Wu Dao’s thirty thousand-plus taels; it might seem like a lot, enough to buy cartloads of medicinal herbs.

But in reality, with this amount of money, the number of Great Medicines that met his cultivation requirements wouldn’t exceed thirty stalks!

With prices easily reaching over a thousand taels per stalk,

Thirty thousand taels... he was really no different from a pauper.

At this point, some might wonder.

Faced with a talent like Wu Dao—who had undergone a Second Rebirth, had a limitless future, and was a suspected Celestial Treasure Master—

Why weren’t the powers-that-be at the White Whale Martial Arts Hall rushing to suck up to Wu Dao and give him free medicinal herbs?

To think so,

Would only be wishful thinking.

First, Wu Dao had just joined the White Whale Martial Arts Hall. To put it bluntly, he was still an outsider whose loyalty had yet to be tested.

Second, nothing can be accomplished without rules and standards.

Even an emperor ruling the world couldn’t just reward and seize things at will, or else the national treasury would face the embarrassment of being empty, let alone a Local Bully of a single Prefecture.

If the higher-ups of the White Whale Martial Arts Hall simply took whatever resources they wanted, giving and taking as they pleased, the organization would never have developed to its current level.

After understanding the price of Cultivation Resources in this world,

Wu Dao finally understood,

Why the White Whale Martial Arts Hall had grown step-by-step from a hall that taught martial arts into the behemoth it was today, occupying half a Prefecture and controlling various industries.

One word: poor!