Chapter 136: Wanted Notice, Secluding Oneself in Isolation

Afterwards, Qin Feng took out the Nine Devouring Heaven Fire Pearls along with that mysterious large black egg.

Since he had tamed the Burning Blood Pure Fire within the Nine Walls, the third fiery cloud on the Nine Devouring Heaven Fire Pearls had ignited.

“Just as I thought!” Qin Feng sensed slightly that the Nine Devouring Fire inside had begun to slowly consume and merge with the Burning Blood Pure Fire. Unexpectedly, the rate of consumption was somewhat faster than when he had last tamed the Marrow Spirit Bone Fire.

Clearly, after devouring some Marrow Spirit Bone Fire, the power of the Nine Devouring Fire had increased, and its ability to absorb had strengthened.

Qin Feng had already noticed this during his daily use.

Now, with another type of flame added, after a gradual process of absorption and integration, the Nine Devouring Fire’s potency would definitely ascend another level.

As for the black egg, it was enormous, occupying almost half of Qin Feng’s cultivation chamber.

Circling the black egg several times, Qin Feng furrowed his brows.

He knew nothing about this mysterious black egg; the only option was to seek help from the Celestial Demon.

“Celestial Demon, back then in the Demon’s Lair, you insisted I take the black, gold, and azure eggs. Do you know their true origins?” Qin Feng’s eyes brimmed with questions as he awaited the Celestial Demon’s response.

The Celestial Demon blinked in his palm, answering crisply yet vaguely, “I do not know their true origins. I just sensed that among the black, gold, and azure eggs, there is a trace of true dragon’s aura. Judging by its appearance and size, this black egg likely hails from the Hell Sea’s demon dragon clan. What you need to do now is to find a way to hatch this black egg; all answers will then reveal themselves.”

“The Hell Sea?” Qin Feng frowned, having never heard of such a place.

It seemed this world held countless secrets beyond his knowledge.

Seeing Qin Feng’s expression, the Celestial Demon advised, “Boy, the Hell Sea is a mysterious, ancient sealed realm you cannot enter. Focus on improving your own strength first—that is the top priority.”

Qin Feng sighed in agreement.

The Celestial Demon was right. He couldn’t even escape the small Cloud Rise Kingdom now, let alone venture into those enigmatic and perilous places.

“But how exactly am I supposed to hatch the egg?” Qin Feng asked.

The Celestial Demon fell silent, clearly at a loss. After all, even the Celestial Demon was not omnipotent—a fact Qin Feng understood well.

After some study, no progress was made.

Qin Feng had no choice but to store the black egg away for the time being. Its sheer size made it impractical to keep in the room. He would need to research it gradually when time allowed.

In the following days, Qin Feng led several subordinates on the battlefield in the Tianhuan Mountains, collecting corpses. He was cautious, restraining his men to avoid clashes with disciples from Shu Sword Mountain.

Whenever they saw Shu Sword Mountain’s disciples, they kept a safe distance.

Now, concealed under a covert identity, Qin Feng naturally acted with discretion.

Yet, the task of corpse collection remained largely unaffected.

Because Qin Feng had protected them the previous day, everyone now obediently followed his orders, burying their heads in hard work. Efficiency soared, and they finished a day’s workload in just over half a day.

They even managed to gather enough for Qin Feng’s double share.

Qin Feng smiled—this was exactly the outcome he wanted.

Qin Feng’s daily task was to keep watch and use his powerful divine sense to locate corpses, coordinating with his men’s diligent labor. The efficiency of corpse collection steadily increased.

Each day, Qin Feng’s team submitted more corpses than any other team.

Moreover, after Qin Feng’s ruthless approach previously, the fat steward of the No. 31 Ten Thousand Corpses Cave viewed Qin Feng’s controlled subordinate Xing Bing with increased respect. Whenever delivering tasks, he would pat Xing Bing on the shoulder and praise him highly. Xing Bing’s reputation grew louder among the junior disciples of the Corpse Sect, attracting much envy.

Qin Feng’s team also grew stronger.

From the initial seven members, it expanded to ten, and now twenty!

Each time they returned, Qin Feng secretly kept some corpses. Back at his residence, he used the Celestial Demon’s Blood Qi Coffin to refine the corpses into flesh-and-blood pills, supplying Xing Bing and Zhan Bai.

The cultivation of these two corpses improved rapidly.

However, Qin Feng also discovered a problem—the two corpses had different aptitudes.

This was actually recorded in the “Corpse Yin Scripture”: whether destined corpses or raised corpses, they were graded.

It was like the ranking of flying swords or the bloodline souls of the Qin family.

Corpse grades ranged from Common, Yellow, Mysterious, Earth, Heaven, to Divine. The higher the grade, the faster the cultivation speed and the stronger and more peculiar the divine abilities. Corpses graded Heaven and above sometimes possessed more than two powerful divine abilities.

Every disciple of the Corpse Sect desired a high-grade corpse because their cultivation depended entirely on the corpse. The higher the grade, the more efficient the cultivation.

But corpses above the Earth grade were hard to come by, influenced heavily by the corpse’s cultivation level before death, physical constitution, cause of death, and the environment in which the corpse was formed.

The two corpses Qin Feng controlled—Xing Bing was only Mysterious grade, while Zhan Bai was Earth grade. The four corpses in the nurturing chamber were merely Yellow grade.

Zhan Bai’s special divine ability did not disappoint—he possessed a golden corpse body.

This special corpse ability allowed innate control over metal-type mysterious artifacts like flying swords. Even without using mysterious energy, he could command flying swords. Coupled with the Tai Xuan Eight Extremes Sword fused within him, Zhan Bai’s control over flying swords was formidable.

Since Zhan Bai was Qin Feng’s destined corpse, Qin Feng could also borrow this ability, perfectly compensating for his own shortcomings in sword control.

Xing Bing, meanwhile, was also a controlled corpse—a raised corpse whose newly gained intelligence was under Qin Feng’s control. His divine ability was a corpse body doubling technique, relatively common among corpses, but provided significant strength boosts. Qin Feng was reasonably satisfied with this.

Or rather, Qin Feng had never held high expectations for Xing Bing.

Corpse cultivation levels were finely divided, roughly corresponding to human cultivation levels: Corpse Birth Stage, Corpse Transformation Stage, Corpse Pill Stage, Corpse Infant Stage, and Corpse God Stage, mirroring the mortal Gaang, human Gaang, earth Gaang, heaven Gaang, and divine Gaang stages.

After death and transformation into a corpse, original cultivation split into two aspects: the corpse’s grade and the corpse’s initial cultivation level. Generally, higher cultivation before death meant higher cultivation after corpse transformation, though not absolutely. Most corpses inherited about 30-40% of their living strength.

Thus, Zhan Bai entered the Corpse Transformation Stage directly after becoming a corpse. After consuming a large amount of flesh-and-blood pills in recent days, his cultivation advanced quickly. However, compared to Zhan Bai’s living cultivation realm, there was still a wide gap; combat power was a different matter altogether.

After all, a corpse could not compare to a living person, but corpses possessed special abilities living beings lacked—such as immunity to certain fatal injuries.

Xing Bing lagged far behind.

He was only at the Corpse Birth Stage, but after Qin Feng provided ample flesh-and-blood pills, he barely advanced to the sixth rank of the Corpse Birth Stage. Poor quality, low realm—practically a big clumsy bug.

Fortunately, the presence of the demon snake, which controlled him, allowed Xing Bing to exert about 50% of his living strength. Added to his recovery divine ability, his overall power was significantly enhanced, so his strength could not be judged merely by his own realm.

Still, Qin Feng was quietly troubled.

Currently, he was only relying on the prestige Xing Bing had accumulated before.

If someone with malicious intent discovered this and fought him, Qin Feng would likely be exposed.

Therefore, while leading the team to collect corpses, Qin Feng carefully selected high-quality corpses to bring back, using large amounts of flesh-and-blood pills to wildly boost Zhan Bai and Xing Bing’s strength.

Everything proceeded in an orderly manner.

Then, an unexpected event occurred on the last day of corpse collection!

That day, every disciple under the Corpse Sect received a wanted poster. The image depicted was none other than Qin Feng himself.

Xing Bing naturally received it too—over twenty copies at once, one for himself, the rest to distribute among subordinates.

Qin Feng gave a bitter smile.

What had to come had finally arrived!

It seemed Li Xingjian and You Qing were truly blessed to survive the Demon’s Lair and had acted swiftly. The righteous and demonic forces had united to issue a bounty on him within the Cloud Rise Kingdom’s territory—one hundred top-grade mysterious stones as reward!

One top-grade mysterious stone equaled one hundred mid-grade stones, equivalent to ten thousand low-grade stones!

Calculating that, the bounty was a million low-grade mysterious stones!

“Damn, I’m so valuable now!” Qin Feng thought.

Back when Ye Wuyin of the White Tiger family hired assassins on Blood River Bridge, it only cost a few low-grade stones. Now, Qin Feng’s worth had skyrocketed to a million!

“What a big move. Li Xingjian must truly hate me to the bone!” Qin Feng’s brows knitted tightly.

Analyzing the current situation, both factions were surely searching for him vigorously within the Cloud Rise Kingdom’s territory, mobilizing all available forces and even offering a heavy bounty.

Where there is a heavy reward, there will be brave men eager to seize it.

Fortunately, Qin Feng had foreseen this; otherwise, he would now be a rat crossing the street, hunted by all.

Thinking of being chased across thousands of miles, Qin Feng shuddered involuntarily.

For now, it was best to lie low. The corpse collection on the battlefield was nearly complete; returning to seclusion was the wisest choice.

Cautiously, Qin Feng told Fan Liu a few words, then returned to the Corpse Sect.

Outside, he dared not linger any longer.

On the battlefield, corpses were finite and soon thoroughly cleared by the Corpse Sect disciples.

Having completed the corpse collection task beyond quota, Qin Feng received no further sect assignments. After instructing Fan Liu, he hastily entered seclusion.

Xing Bing was originally at the peak of the mortal Gaang stage; this seclusion was naturally aimed at breaking into the human Gaang stage. Others understood this and found nothing unusual.

This seclusion would last an astonishing three years.

…