NOVEL FROG Chapter 15: The River Ahead
Bing Meilu immediately began to ravenously devour the Yin energy, drawing in more and more of the fog with each breath. Soon Bing Meilu felt her cultivation erupt forward. The Qi stored within her seventy-two apertures began to thicken, condensing as Bing Meilu broke through.
Third Tier of Qi Condensation!
A greedy glint appeared in Bing Meilu's eyes. Perhaps the Flesh Mountains were not as bad as she had expected.
However, Bing Meilu did not let her excitement get ahead of her. If her cultivation were to rapidly improve, it would surely attract the suspicions of the leaders of the escort company. Worst case scenario, they would decide she had some secret or treasure valuable enough to risk offending the Moon Crying Swan Palace to steal.
If Bing Meilu wanted to safely cultivate, she would need to ensure she remained lowkey. As Bing Meilu broke through, the aura of Qi naturally emitting from her body would strengthen and swell, denoting her increase in strength. However, it was rather easy to simply contract the Qi aura, ensuring it remained at the same size it was before her breakthrough. While this disguise would fail to block the Spiritual Sense of a Nascent Soul level Cultivator, it would work wonders against anyone below that level.
Now confident in her disguise, Bing Meilu returned to cultivation. Fog saturated with pure Yin energy entered her body, flooding into her Dantian where it was refined into Qi and distributed between her seventy-two apertures.
Bing Meilu repeated the cycle over and over again.
And again
And Again
And Aga-
"Raaaaaaaagh!"
A pained scream tore through the air, startling Bing Meilu. She whipped her head around, turning to look back at the caravan behind her.
A dozen meters behind her a middle-aged bald man lay on the ground, clutching at his leg. Some grotesque blob of pink slime had wrapped tightly around the bald man's foot - and from the intensity of his pain riddled screams, the experience was clearly not very comfortable.
Before the man could even scream a second time, a blade of silver light shot through the air, slicing at the man's leg. Blood spurted as everything below his knee was severed from his body. Seconds later a blast of fire shot through the air, incinerating the chopped-off limb and the flesh blob attached to it.
The silver axe-wielding man at the head of the caravan quickly flew through the air, arriving at the man's side.
"I'll take this unfortunate incident as a reminder to inform all customers that should you come across suspicious-looking blobs of flesh sitting on the floor, to not kick it," the man with the axe said, glaring pointedly at the bald man, who still clutched his bleeding leg. "What you all just say was what we call a Clamper. It's a type of low-level Flesh-Demon that latches onto living creatures, spreading flesh-melting poison through their veins before devouring their liquefied insides. Luckily I caught that one early and cut off the poison-filled limb, or this man would be dead."
The bald man who lay on the floor only let out a pained whimper as he clutched at his bleeding stump, tears and snot dripping down his face. The man with the silver axe shook his head disdainfully, before reaching into a pocket and pulling out a pill.
"And while this man was injured completely by his own stupidity, we here at the Blackwater escort service pride ourselves on our customer service. We provide each ticketed customer with one free Full Healing Pill, while our competitors would charge extra for such a premium luxury!"
Having said his piece, the silver axe-wielding man leaned down, pressing the pill into the mouth of the bald man. Instantly, bubbles of flesh and sinew began to extend from the bald man's stump, growing into a full limb. Stunned noises of awe and amazement came from the people in the caravan as they watched the man's leg grow back in full.
"Wow, Company Head Fang Lee is so magnanimous!"
"Only a saint would give out such a wondrous medicine for free!"
"I'll definitely use this escort service exclusively from now on!"
"I only bought a ticket because of how cheap they were, but to think we would get such an amazing service!"
In the crowd, many people began to talk to each other, praising the escort company. However, Bing Meilu only scoffed, turning her head back to look forward.
Full Healing Pill? A Premium luxury? What a total load of hot garbage!
---
Fang Lee internally smirked, hearing the praise of the customers.
'Just as planned!'
He knew it had been somewhat of a risk, to hire an actor to injure themselves purposefully just so that Fang Lee could show off the healing pills and advertise for his business. However, his divinations consistently assured him that the performance would cause many one-time customers to become recurring patrons.
After all, the sight of a seemingly crippled man completely regrowing a limb would be sure to leave a deep impression on his mortal customers who knew little about the cultivation world.
It was slightly deceptive, but how else could a small fish like Fang Lee compete with the already well-established businesses that dominated the market?
If he ever wanted to accomplish his goal of creating a massive, ultra-lucrative business that would print money, Fang Lee definitely had to take every small advantage he could!
Speaking of advantages, Fang Lee glanced over to the Moon Crying Swan Palace Disciple. She sat silently atop Zhang's Star-Mane Lion, face expressionless. A grimace crossed his face as he looked at the girl. He knew the type. She was a rich, spoiled young mistress who had never worked a day in their life, unlike him. The sheer arrogance of someone in Qi Condensation to dare steal the servant of Fang Lee, who was in Core Formation, utterly shocked him. If any normal person had tried that, he would have killed them for the insult.
Regardless of how much face her actions might have cost him, she was a disciple of the Moon Crying Swan Palace, and he was just a humble businessman without backing. If he even touched a hair on her head, he would die a painful death.
At the very least, he was getting far more out of the deal than he had lost. The girl, Xia Xuefeng, was only in Qi Condensation. While it wasn't easy to find cultivators willing to work for his company, it wasn't impossible either.
On the other hand, the great publicity he would gain from advertising that his company had escorted a member of the Moon Crying Swan Palace was invaluable. Even better would be the chance for him to subtly spread rumours his company had secret connections to the Palace, dissuading his competition from trying to attack him.
Sighing, the businessman looked away from the irritating child and gazed across the fog-covered landscape. A shiver ran down his spine. No matter how many times he travelled through this cursed land, he could never get used to the place. Tall bone spurs stabbed forth from the ground, standing tall above organ-like bulges of pulsating purple tissue. In the distance, a red-yellow river of bubbling blood and slimy pus cut across the meat of the landscape.
The occasional roars of far off beasts constantly split the air, accompanied by horrific trembling. Of those present in the caravan, only Fang Lee and Zhang had strong enough senses to notice the distant noise.
'It's almost funny,' Fang Lee mused. 'As a child, I always imagined I'd grow less scared of this place the stronger I become. Instead, it's the other way around. The higher my cultivation grows, the more aware I become of how horrifying this place is.'
A cursed dimension of gore and flesh, brimming with ancient and terrifying demons that had grown fat over the centuries. Only those who had wandered the depths of the Flesh Mountains could describe just how dangerous it was.
'Ironic that such a place would become one of the world's most popular trade routes,' Fang Lee chuckled internally.
Slowly the front of the caravan reached the churning river of pus and blood. Shaking his head, the businessman grabbed the hilt of his Moon-Silver Axe, preparing himself. The most dangerous part of the trip was now about to begin.