Tainted will

A month had passed since Bai Ming had achieved the 1st layer of rotten blood art. For the past month, he was in seclusion most of the time, he only went out a couple of times for the scripture library.

____

[𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚜]

[𝙽𝚊𝚖𝚎: 𝙱𝚊𝚒 𝙼𝚒𝚗𝚐]

[𝙲𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: 𝚃𝚒𝚎𝚛 9 𝙱𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚖 ]

[𝚂𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚝 𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚝: 𝚂𝚞𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚛 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚎 +]

[𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚑𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗: 4 +]

[𝚂𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚍𝚎: 5 +]

[𝚂𝚔𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚜: 0/2000]

____

"I have finally reached the peak of the bone forging realm and possess 18000jin of raw strength. Now I need to inform the elder and get the second layer of the primeval star mantra."

"Before that let's see how many spirit stones I have left... 344 spirit stones, hmm then adding this month's income from the wine tavern it should just reach around 400 spirit stones. Since my grandfather is probably dead, all these spirit stones belong to me, and there are his life savings of another 400 spirit stones. It's a pity that grandfather was too afraid to pass the clan martial techniques, Now that he is not returning I will get nearly 50-60 spirit stones from the tavern every month, plus once he is really dead the clan would give me another compensation of 300 spirit stones, But if I want to upgrade my stats, this is still far from enough and if I spend all of my spirit stones to upgrade my stats there will be nothing left for cultivation. Sigh.. how troublesome." Bai Ming was pondering deeply, but he suddenly heard a voice calling him from outside of his house.

Bai Ming frowned slightly, but his face quickly became tranquil. He went down and opened the door only to see a middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man looked deeply at Bai Ming before handing him a letter and a bag filled with spirit stones. He said in a deep voice "Take it"

Bai Ming immediately understood, but on the surface, he spoke in a tone filled with confusion "This... uncle, what is this about?"

The middle-aged man took a deep breath before speaking "it's about your grandfather, we just received a report saying that he failed in his mission..."

Hearing this Bai Ming's entire body shook, his face paled immediately, he dropped the bag of spirit stones in his hands, and tears rolled down his face as he shakily pointed one of his fingers at the middle-aged man as he spoke in a choked tone "You, You, wha-what are you speaking about!? I don't believe you! I don't believe you! Ahhh!" Bai Ming's voice was weak at the beginning but later on, he cried out at the top of his lungs.

The middle-aged man looked at Bai Ming and felt much pity, he sighed saying "Senior Li's sacrifice will not be forgotten, he will always live within our hearts. Child, you need to accept reality and stay strong, I will take my leave now. Sigh."

"No, no, no,..!" Bai Ming had absolutely lost it. He plopped down and began crying and hitting the ground with both of his hands nonstop.

The middle-aged man took one last look at Bai Ming before turning around and leaving.

But once the middle-aged man left, Bai Ming who seemed to have gone crazy a second ago, regained his composure right away. His face swiftly turned indifferent.

He grabbed the bag of spirit stones and the letter and went straight to his room, he spoke internally "Grandfather.....you were courting death! "

Old Li had previously written a letter to Bai Ming regarding the mission the day he left, after reading the letter Bai Ming clearly understood that his grandfather had no hopes of returning back, It was just plain suicide. Of course, he was ordered by the higher-ups to complete this mission and there was no way he could reject it.

Bai Ming sat in his room as he looked at the bag of spirit stones coldly and sneered. Then he placed his attention on the letter, it was the ownership transfer certificate of the wine tavern and his house to Bai Ming's name.

"Those who don't value their lives deserve death. Loyalty to the clan, what a load of bullshit. Hahaha, no matter, it's good that you died, hahaha. it's just a pity that you weren't as useful as I hoped you to be, foolish old man." Bai Ming coldly mocked his own grandfather, but there was a hint of grief deeply concealed within his eyes which was quickly cast away.

"I was going to get the 2nd layer of primeval star mantra from the elder but it looks like I'll have to postpone it for a few days. Since that is the case I will begin collecting materials today." Bai Ming was decisive with his decision.

...

It was nearing midnight, The night sky was picturesque. The moon was ethereal. Millions of stars were shining behind it, a few large ones but mostly a multitude of little white pinpricks.

The tree roots penetrate into the mountain soil, Thick and solid tree trunks faced each other, looking similar through the distances. The exuberant branches and leaves intertwined in mid-air.

Under the surroundings of these trees were old wooden houses.

Inside one of the houses, there was a family of three sleeping soundly, they were unaware of the masked demon in their house.

Bai Ming moved towards the bed and placed his hand on the man's head, injecting his spiritual energy into the man.

Feeling the unbearable pressure the man woke up from his sleep but he wasn't able to open his eyes, he tried to open his eyes but under the spiritual pressure he was frozen stiff, he couldn't make a sound.

"No spirit root" Bai Ming spoke mentally. Next, he directly broke the man's neck, killing him before storing his corpse in the storage bag.

This method of opening the spirit root was mentioned in the cultivation encyclopedia.

Next, he placed his hand on the woman's head and channeled his spiritual energy.

"Nice, she has a spirit root" Bai Ming was a little pleased, next he broke the woman's neck before storing her corpse.

Once a person has opened their spirit root they are tier 1 bone forging realm cultivators.

Then Bai Ming went to another corner of the room, a nine-year-old child was sleeping soundly. He placed his hand on the boy's head.

"Fantastic, high-grade spirit root" Bai Ming knocked the child unconscious, he didn't kill him.

"This the last house in this mortal village, let me first bring these children to the cave. there are still three more mortal villages left after this."

Bai Ming carried the boy to another nearby house, once he entered the house he saw four children lying on the floor unconscious. He placed the kids on his shoulder and headed towards the hidden cave.

"Counting all the eight mortal villages so far I have a total of five high-grade children now, but I should also capture one mortal child, I'll have to set an example for these high-grade children after all." Bai Ming rapidly moved, after running for an hour he reached the cave, he quickly locked these children in the cave and moved towards another mortal village.

Xuan Mountain has three mountain villages. Ye village, Song family village, and Luo family village. The Luo family village was on the fore mountain, the Ye mountain village was at the mountain waist, and Song family village was at the back mountain.

Other than the three villages, there were also dozens of tiny villages in the mountain, all being inhabited by mortals. Nearly hundreds of mortals resided in each of these mortal villages.

The three mountain villages each had a number of small villages, being the ones controlling them behind the scenes. Once they lacked family servants, they would pick from these small villages. But they would not choose cultivators from them. Even if they knew that among these mortals were people with talent, although rare, they would still not use them.

The reason being that the clans prioritized bloodline, the clan was unlike those martial sects which would welcome everyone. The clan held strong beliefs towards bloodline.

Next, Bai Ming appeared in another mortal village, he began scouting the place, and he searched for the guard station.

In order to control mortals, Cultivation forces would send one or two bone-forging realm cultivators to look after the respective villages in turns.

Bai Ming finally caught sight of the station guard's residence. It was a small wooden house, inside the house was an old man sleeping, in the silence of the night his snoring could be heard clearly.

Bai Ming saw that this old man was a peak bone forging realm cultivator, most of the station guards had similar cultivation.

After making sure that he was really asleep, Bai Ming quickly moved toward the mortal village to begin collecting materials.

"The moon sure is pretty" Bai Ming commented as he began another killing spree.