Chapter 25

This is also why Liu Ping, seeing Zhu Lingwu's cultivation speed, was worried about any potential side effects on his body, and thus specially added this step.

Liu Ping's intention was for Zhu Lingwu to drink the blood first, then soak in the medicinal bath, which would help Zhu Lingwu cultivate his vital energy and better digest the electric currents absorbed during practice.

Of course, this tiger blood was just ordinary tiger blood, not comparable to the blood of spirit beasts. However, compared to other animals, it was still a decent tonic. Liu Ping had specially bought it for Zhu Lingwu's cultivation, without adding any other drugs.

At the time, Zhu Lingwu didn't think much about it. Since everything related to cultivation was arranged by the professional Liu Ping, it was highly unlikely that he would harm him.

Drinking animal blood and soaking in a medicinal bath were all normal procedures for cultivating martial arts after the innate stage.

However, when Zhu Lingwu drank the tiger blood, he was initially quite startled. He found that the tiger blood, before reaching his intestines, seemed to suddenly boil as if it had encountered a flame.

Subsequently, the vigorous life force contained in the tiger blood began to disperse and directly融入 his body, like water seeping into a desert.

By the time the tiger blood reached his intestines, it had already turned into water and blood impurities, and would soon be excreted from his body.

This was a completely instinctive bodily reaction, as if the soul scattered throughout his body had issued a command, causing the areas through which the blood passed to produce special energy fluctuations, extracting the life force from the blood.

Zhu Lingwu immediately used his soul sense to perceive this area and saw the soul fluctuations scattered there. This was definitely a natural bodily response.

Unfortunately, the amount of tiger blood he drank at the time was too small. Such a small bowl couldn't provide much life force to Zhu Lingwu.

But Zhu Lingwu also knew that taking this much blood from a tiger once a day was already the limit, unless one didn't care about the tiger's life.

Extracting blood in this way wasn't as simple as just letting some blood; it required specialized techniques to extract the essence blood from the tiger's body, which could only be done with specific methods.

Zhu Lingwu knew this method as well. In his own world, he had set up a deer farm and used this method to extract fresh deer blood for himself. At that time, he would drink blood every three or seven days, and each time he would need to extract blood from dozens of deer to meet his body's needs.

The blood had to be fresh. If it left the body for more than a day, it was basically useless. Artificial blood was even more useless because Zhu Lingwu needed the life force contained in the blood.

Now, a tiger could only be bled once a day, and after seven days, the bleeding had to stop for half a month before it could continue.

Currently, the county office only had one tiger, which Liu Ping had specially ordered for Zhu Lingwu from the market. It was much easier to buy a tiger than a spirit beast.

On the first day, Zhu Lingwu wasn't sure, but on the second day, after drinking the tiger blood prepared by Liu Ping, he confirmed that the blood-sucking ability he had in his previous life had also been brought to this new body along with his soul memory.

Of course, in this living body, the life force extracted from the blood would directly replenish his blood, rather than replacing the blood as the energy to sustain his body.

This led Zhu Lingwu to have another thought: If his innate ability could extract life force from the blood, could he also directly absorb innate spirit energy from the blood if he drank blood containing innate spirit energy?

His current body's blood lacked innate spirit energy, which is why he was rated as having a low-grade innate five-element mixed spirit vein. During cultivation, he could "attract" very little natural spirit energy, making his cultivation speed slow.

But if he could directly drink innate spirit energy, it might speed up his cultivation and even increase the concentration of innate spirit energy in his blood, potentially improving his innate spirit vein grade.

This way, the defect of his low-grade innate spirit vein might be compensated for by this innate ability.

Of course, to achieve his goal, he needed to drink blood containing innate spirit energy. He couldn't drink the blood of the children of the gentry.

Even if Zhu Lingwu could suppress his disgust and drink human blood, if the truth were exposed, he would likely be listed as an enemy by all the gentry and become a bloodthirsty demon.

How could he, alone, stand against the gentry and the cultivation sects behind them?

Moreover, Zhu Lingwu really couldn't bring himself to drink human blood. Unless he could find a way to directly absorb the innate spirit energy from their blood without drinking it, he could only focus on spirit beasts for now.

However, spirit beasts were not easy to come by.

After learning that he had this innate ability, which he called "Blood Absorption and Vitality Return," Zhu Lingwu sent people to the East Market to place an order for a spirit beast.

Three months have passed, and only now has someone reported back, saying that several groups of adventurers have taken the order and set out to the Ten Thousand Demon Ridge to capture spirit beasts. One group of adventurers has reported back, saying they will bring a spirit beast back by noon today.

Unfortunately, when Zhu Lingwu went there, they hadn't arrived yet. It was said that there was a minor incident, but it's getting dark, and no one has reported back.

Zhu Lingwu couldn't help but worry that the adventurers might have encountered demons on the way, who might have rescued the spirit beasts.

After all, those adventurers were like slave traders in Africa, but the demons protecting the spirit beasts were not to be trifled with.

For their children, these demons might go mad. Although the adventurers might not face high-level demons, even ordinary demons were very dangerous for those who only knew martial arts after the innate stage.

"Will this be another wasted wait?"

Zhu Lingwu couldn't help but think to himself. He regretted not having enough strength; otherwise, he would have tried himself.

Moreover, Liu Ping, as a gentry soldier, couldn't easily take action. After all, he was a registered figure in Tongshan County and had taken up the position of county military commander after following Zhu Junyan to Tongshan County.

In addition to leading the Zhu family's private soldiers, he also commanded the 500 county soldiers of Tongshan County, making him the highest military official in the county.

If a small group of common adventurers secretly sneaked into the Ten Thousand Demon Ridge, it would be one thing. Many of them were just delivering meat to the demons. But if someone like Liu Ping, along with the Zhu family's private soldiers, went there, it would be a different matter. It would mean that the Chong'an Kingdom was declaring war on the demons of the Ten Thousand Demon Ridge.

Even Zhu Junyan couldn't bear such responsibility, so Zhu Lingwu naturally couldn't ask Liu Ping to help him capture a spirit beast.

"Master, there's news. They have the goods. Master, would you like to go and see?"

Liang Cai returned from the teahouse and bowed before Zhu Lingwu, speaking...