The sheer cliff face of the Slag Valley was universally recognized as a death trap for ordinary mortals and low-level cultivators alike. It was a thousand feet of vertical, jagged black stone, slick with decades of toxic moss and corrosive miasma. A normal man would slip and fall to his death within the first ten feet.
But Lin Mo was no longer a normal man.
He stood at the base of the cliff, testing the newfound power humming beneath his skin. He reached out and drove his bare fingers into the solid stone wall.
Crunch.
The hard, volcanic rock yielded like soft tofu. Lin Mo's eyes widened slightly in awe. The Primordial Dragon-Elephant Strength didn't just give him raw muscular power; it had fundamentally altered the density of his bones and the hardness of his flesh.
Taking a deep breath of the surprisingly clear air around him—the toxic miasma instinctively parting before his pure spiritual aura—Lin Mo began to climb.
He didn't use any fancy movement techniques. He simply relied on explosive, brutal force. His fingers dug into the cliff face, acting as indestructible iron hooks, while his legs propelled him upward with terrifying speed. Every time he kicked off, the stone beneath his boots shattered, sending showers of gravel into the abyss below.
To an observer, he would look less like a man climbing and more like a monstrous beast scaling a siege wall. What would have taken an experienced mountaineer a full day took Lin Mo less than fifteen minutes.
As he neared the edge, the thick smog of the valley gave way to the crisp, twilight air of the Azure Cloud Sect's outer perimeter. The setting sun cast long, blood-red shadows across the rocky terrain.
Before he pulled himself over the ledge, Lin Mo paused. His newly enhanced senses—a perk of reaching the Third Level of Qi Condensation—picked up the faint sound of voices carrying over the wind.
"...can't believe Young Master Zhao actually gave us ten low-grade spirit stones just for tossing that garbage." It was Wang's voice, dripping with greedy satisfaction.
"Easy money," Li replied, the clinking sound of spirit stones echoing clearly. "That crippled Fire Servant was as good as dead anyway. Did you see his chest? Completely caved in. Even if the fall didn't kill him, the poison down there would melt his bones in an hour."
"Still, to hoard a Three-Leaf Spirit Grass... the rat was ambitious. Pity ambition doesn't cure dead meridians." Wang laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "Come on, let's divide this up. We need to get back before the evening curfew."
Clinging to the edge of the cliff, Lin Mo's golden eyes went dangerously cold. All the years of enduring their mockery, of eating their scraps, of bowing his head just to survive—it all boiled over, merging with the tyrannical energy of his new cultivation base.
He pulled himself up and stepped onto the solid ground of the cliff edge. His tattered grey servant's robe fluttered wildly in the evening wind.
"Actually," Lin Mo said, his voice eerily calm, cutting through the howling wind. "I think you should leave those stones right where they are."
Wang and Li froze. The low-grade spirit stones they were eagerly counting slipped from their trembling fingers, clattering loudly against the rocky ground.
They slowly turned around. The color completely drained from their faces, leaving them as pale as corpses.
"L-Lin Mo?" Wang stammered, his eyes bulging so far out of their sockets they threatened to pop. He stumbled backward, tripping over a rock and landing hard on his rear. "A g-ghost! It's a vengeful ghost!"
Li, slightly older and more vicious, swallowed hard, his hands instinctively dropping to the hilt of his sword. "Ghost your ass! Look at his shadow. He's alive!"
"But how?!" Wang shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at the abyss. "It's a thousand feet! And the miasma—"
"I don't care how!" Li interrupted, drawing his low-grade iron sword with a sharp shing. The blade glowed with a faint, weak white light—the signature of a First Level Qi Condensation cultivator. "If the fall didn't kill him, I will. Young Master Zhao doesn't like loose ends. If anyone finds out he survived, we're the ones who will suffer!"
Murderous intent flashed in Li's eyes. He didn't hesitate. He lunged forward, executing a basic sect martial art: The Wind-Piercing Thrust.
It was a technique designed to pierce the tough hides of low-level demonic beasts. Li poured every ounce of his meager spiritual energy into the strike, aiming directly for Lin Mo's heart.
In the past, this strike would have been a blur of unavoidable death to Lin Mo. But now?
In Lin Mo's eyes, Li's movement was agonizingly, pathetically slow. He could see the flaws in Li's footwork, the unsteady flow of Qi in his arms, and the slight tremor of fear in his grip.
Lin Mo didn't dodge. He simply stood perfectly still, his hands resting by his sides, until the glowing tip of the iron sword was mere inches from his chest.
Then, he raised his right hand. He didn't use a fist. He simply extended two fingers—his index and middle finger—and snapped them shut around the flat of the incoming blade.
CLANG!
A harsh, ringing metallic sound echoed across the cliff. A visible shockwave of displaced air blew the dust away from their feet.
The mocking, murderous smile completely froze on Li's face. The force behind his Wind-Piercing Thrust vanished as if it had hit an impenetrable mountain of divine steel.
Lin Mo's two fingers had caught the blade effortlessly. Not a single drop of blood was drawn. The low-grade iron sword trembled violently, humming under the immense pressure, completely unable to move a single millimeter forward.
"H-how?" Li gasped, the breath knocked out of his lungs by pure shock. He pulled back with all his might, his face turning red with exertion, but the sword wouldn't budge. It was as if it were welded to Lin Mo's fingers.
"You call this a sword strike?" Lin Mo whispered coldly, his golden eyes locking onto Li's terrified gaze. "Too weak."
Crack!
With a casual, almost lazy flick of his wrist, Lin Mo twisted his two fingers. The iron sword groaned in protest before completely shattering into dozens of jagged metallic shards.
Before Li could even register the loss of his weapon, let alone scream, Lin Mo moved.
His fist shot forward, not like a human punch, but like a fired cannonball. He didn't even use his spiritual energy; it was purely the physical manifestation of the Dragon-Elephant Strength.
The fist sank deep into Li's stomach.
The impact was deafening, sounding like a war drum being struck by a giant. Li's body was literally launched off the ground, folded in half by the immense force. He flew backward through the air for thirty feet before smashing violently into the thick trunk of an ancient pine tree.
The tree shuddered, dropping a rain of pinecones. Li slumped to the ground, coughing up a horrifying mixture of blood and shattered teeth. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he lost consciousness instantly.
One punch. Absolute, overwhelming defeat.
Wang, the remaining lackey, dropped the pouch of spirit stones he had instinctively grabbed. A warm, humiliating wetness spread across his trousers. His legs gave out completely, and he fell to his knees, pressing his forehead against the dirt.
The crippled Fire Servant he had kicked down the cliff just an hour ago was now standing before him, unaffected by a sword strike, radiating an aura that felt more oppressive than an Inner Sect Elder.
"S-spare me! Senior Lin! Lord Lin!" Wang cried out, tears and snot mixing on his face. "I was forced! Young Master Zhao made us do it! Please, I have an elderly mother in the mortal realm—"
"Save your breath," Lin Mo interrupted, his voice devoid of any pity. He walked over slowly, his boots crunching on the gravel.
He wasn't a bloodthirsty maniac. He didn't need to kill a groveling worm like Wang. But he couldn't let him report back to Zhao Feng just yet. He needed time to turn his new advantages into an impenetrable fortress.
Lin Mo raised his hand and delivered a swift, precise chop to the back of Wang's neck. The lackey instantly went limp, falling face-first into the dirt, joining his companion in a deep slumber. They wouldn't wake up for at least two days.
Lin Mo didn't waste another second. He knelt down and ruthlessly stripped them of their storage pouches.
It was time to claim his spoils of war.
He opened Wang's pouch first. Inside, he found his own hard-earned savings—thirty low-grade spirit stones—along with the ten extra stones Zhao Feng had paid them. He transferred them to his own ragged pouch without hesitation.
Then, he opened Li's pouch. Aside from a few copper coins and a dirty spare uniform, he found a sealed lead box.
Lin Mo popped the lid open. A foul, putrid smell immediately assaulted his nose. Inside were a dozen dark green, irregularly shaped lumps.
Qi-Gathering Pill Dregs. They were the toxic byproducts created when Inner Sect alchemists failed their refinements. They contained trace amounts of spiritual energy but were overwhelmingly saturated with 'fire poison' and impurities. In the Outer Sect, servants usually used these dregs to poison massive demonic rats that infested the storehouses. Eating one would cause a mortal to rot from the inside out in minutes.
But Lin Mo didn't see poison. He saw an opportunity.
He held the lead box in his hand and closed his eyes, focusing his mind on the Sea of Consciousness.
Instantly, the black cauldron vibrated.
[Target locked: 12x Low-Grade Pill Dregs.]
[Analysis: Contains 2% residual spiritual energy. 98% lethal impurities.]
[Initiating purification and synthesis... Cost: None. 100% Success Rate Guaranteed.]
A faint, invisible vortex formed at the center of Lin Mo's palm. He watched in fascination as the dark green lumps rapidly dried up, their toxic essence vaporizing into harmless grey ash that blew away in the wind.
Seconds later, a warm glow emanated from his hand. The cauldron in his mind chimed.
[Purification Complete. Impurities removed.]
[Acquired: 3x Perfect Grade Qi-Gathering Pills.]
Lin Mo opened his hand. Resting on his palm were three perfectly round, translucent blue pills. They glowed softly in the twilight, each adorned with three delicate pill veins. The rich, intoxicating fragrance of pure spiritual energy washed over him, completely masking the stench of blood and fear that lingered in the air.
"Three Perfect Grade pills..." Lin Mo's breathing grew heavy.
A standard Qi-Gathering Pill was a luxury for Outer Sect disciples. But a Perfect Grade one? It was a treasure that even Inner Sect elites would fight over, as it guaranteed a breakthrough without leaving any hidden damage in the meridians.
He carefully stored the three glowing pills in an empty jade bottle he found in Li's pouch.
Lin Mo slowly stood up. He turned his gaze away from the setting sun and looked toward the northern edge of the Outer Sect. There, sprawling across several acres of barren land, lay the Sect's massive Scrapyard—a dumping ground for decades of failed pills, shattered weapons, and withered spirit herbs.
To the rest of the Azure Cloud Sect, it was a mountain of worthless garbage.
But as Lin Mo touched the invisible cauldron within his mind, a crazy, brilliant smile spread across his face.
To him, it was an unguarded treasury of infinite wealth, just waiting to be claimed.