Black Dog Nail, a type of magic treasure, requires five points of mana to activate each time. Once nailed onto an enemy, it deals 22–28 damage per second. Earth Talisman, also a magic treasure, can release a stream of yellow sand. Its power isn’t great, but it can blind the eyes, making it a great tool for ambushes, sneak attacks, and surprise assaults.

While lying in ambush, I was bored out of my mind and kept checking my system status. Now, my Qingcheng Sword Technique had reached the third level: sword control power +90, sword control speed +105, with over three hundred points of true energy, nearly four hundred points of mana, and even my health had increased by 481.

With each level up in the Qingcheng Sword Technique, you gain an additional spell. When I mastered the first level, I learned Sword Shadow; with the second, I learned the Sword Escape Technique. This one isn’t as good as sword flight, but it does increase movement speed. With my current health, even if there’s a high-level monster hiding here, it can’t kill me instantly. Once I unleash the Blood Bee Sting to block the enemy and then use the Sword Escape Technique to run, I should have a decent chance of survival!

Whether this line of thinking was foolish or naive, I couldn’t have judged at the time. But what happened next was far beyond my expectations. When the sun in Shushan reached its highest point, the forest had already fallen silent. Ever since a long-eared rabbit demon ran by ten minutes ago, I hadn’t seen anything else move.

“It’s coming!” As I muttered to myself, the soil in the forest suddenly began to churn. The once dry ground quickly became moist, and soon turned to mud, but there was no sign of where this spring water was coming from. The trees here were rather sparse, but all were ancient and lush, many as thick as a bowl. Yet, once touched by the churning earth, they immediately sank deep, disappearing beneath the canopy in the blink of an eye.

“There’s water… so it must be a water-type monster! But since it’s still underground, maybe it has some earth attributes too… This is getting interesting!” I tapped my middle and index fingers together, ready to unleash the Green Fang Ghost Arrow at any moment.

Chapter Eleven: Slaying the Jiao

The Qingcheng Sword Technique is a rather mediocre martial art among the sect’s skills. It adds little attack power, and its sword control speed is average—worse than the sword techniques of Emei or Kunlun. But in online games, balance is key. Sects with weaker sword techniques often have unique and powerful exclusive spells.

Besides the Emei Sect, Kunlun Sect, Qingcheng Sect, Huashan Sect, Hundred Barbarian Mountain, Trapping Sky Island, Mount Wutai, Wudang Sect… apart from these righteous and evil sects, there are countless rogue immortals and ancient immortals who left behind cultivation techniques after ascending in Shushan. But to obtain these, you need enough luck and a certain amount of fortune.

Right now, I can only cultivate the Qingcheng Sword Technique, but Qingcheng’s Qi Refining Art is the best among all sects.

This Qi Refining Art, like controlling flying swords, is a skill that consumes true energy. Once mastered, it can form a protective shield outside the body. At higher levels, the refined true energy can even be projected to harm enemies. It’s said that when the Qingcheng Qi Refining Art reaches the peak of level twenty, it can go head-to-head with any level of flying sword magic treasure.

“When I reach level twenty, I’ll return to Qingcheng Mountain. First, to take on the sect’s sword forging quest, and second, to really study the Qingcheng Qi Refining Art. With higher defense, my life will be more secure.”

At this moment, the strange phenomenon in the forest finally began to subside. After a while, the churning earth calmed down, and the water on the ground started to disappear.

“Damn! Don’t tell me that’s it?”

I waited for so long that I even saw a spider crawl across my face, but the spot where the disturbance had occurred remained still. I wasn’t about to settle for seeing just that, so I spread my hand and sent the Green Fang Ghost Arrow burrowing wildly into the ground. After scraping away a layer of soil in the forest, just as I was about to give up, a flash of blue-green light suddenly caught my eye.

“Jackpot!” I thought. “Could it be some treasure surfacing, and I just happened to stumble upon it? Heaven have mercy! I’ve killed so many yellow-furred wolf demons and never found anything decent! If I could get a weapon just a bit better than the flying sword rewarded by the sect’s sword forging quest, I’d be eternally grateful!”

But when I carefully dug away the dirt, my initial hope turned into… well! It wasn’t disappointment, nor longing, but rather resentment! This thing was huge—I’d become a laborer!

I vaguely remembered reading an old novel called “Heroine of the Wild River” when I was a child. It said that after a blue luan mated with a giant python, it would lay eggs in the ground. Every few years, the eggs would sink deeper underground, and when they finally reached the underground water source, they would start to grow. Eventually, they’d break out of their shells as so-called jiao dragons. Whenever a jiao dragon appeared, there would be a flood. It would use the flood to reach a nearby river, settle down, and grow a bit each year, shedding its skin once annually. And every time it shed, there would be another flood.

As I expanded the area I was digging, I became certain that what I’d found was exactly this creature. I’d uncovered a section over ten meters long, thick and sturdy, covered in blue-green scales, and it even squirmed slightly when touched, feeling a bit moist.

“What level is this thing? If I attack now, I definitely can’t kill it in one blow. Facing the counterattack of this blue jiao, I probably wouldn’t survive. Looks like I’ll have to use some tricks. Hmm… Sometimes, summoning a friend isn’t as good as summoning an enemy!”