Stranger Danger

Clang! Clang! Thud!

Ye Qing had just arrived at the scene when he saw three watchmen doing battle against a massive group of human skin Strangers, although to call it a “battle” might be giving the watchmen a little too much credit. They were desperately trying to not die while ten human skin Strangers at minimum attacked them from all sides. Not far away from their feet, a couple of bloody, obviously skinned corpses lay lifelessly on the ground.

Individually, the human skin Stranger wasn’t a great threat. One hit was all it took to destroy the frail skin it possessed. However, they fought with no regard for self-preservation, and their attacks were as strong as an adept Reforged’s. A single hit from these creatures could injure or even kill a watchman outright. That was why the three watchmen were already tethering on the brink of annihilation by the time Ye Qing finally reached them.

As soon as Ye Qing had found his target, he immediately crouched low and sprinted toward the human skin Strangers like the wind. However, he kept silent so as to maximize the advantage of surprise and to avoid being swarmed himself. Once he had gotten close, he swung his long saber like he would split a river in half and bisected three human skin Strangers in one swing. He slashed again to shatter all the black qi escaping from the destroyed skin.

Not done yet, Ye Qing took a moment to adjust his footing before changing his saber style from heavy to light. He transformed from a powerful storm that could snap even the thickest tree trunk to a light drizzle that could reach even the narrowest cracks. Nimble, quick, and precise, he easily beheaded another two human skin Strangers and sent their heads flying across the air.

Ye Qing could’ve killed more, but that would be too much for a mere “journeyman Reforged”. So, he pulled back and pretended that he had run out of strength. It was all he needed to do anyway. The death of five human skin Strangers had dramatically lessened the pressure on the three watchmen and allowed them to launch a decisive counterattack. It wasn’t long before all the enemies were eliminated.

“Phew… you could not have come at a better time, Ye Qing. We’d have all died if you were just a little slower! Thank you!” A watchman thanked Ye Qing after the crisis was over. He was Ma Shiyuan, a squad leader.

After taking a couple more seconds to catch his breath, Ma Shiyuan added, “And I can hardly believe how much you’ve grown when you’ve just joined the watchmen for a couple of days. I’m starting to think that we’ve all chosen the wrong calling here!”

“You flatter me, Uncle Ma. I’m sure you could’ve done the same if you were in my position, not to mention that the Strangers were completely focused on you and your men,” Ye Qing replied modestly before changing the subject, “So, what on earth happened here, Uncle Ma?”

Ma Shiyuan’s expression turned severe as he turned to look at the three dead bodies just a short distance away from them. He said slowly, “You rushed over because of the contact talisman, didn’t you? Well, we were the same, except that Old Wei and his men were already dead by the time we showed up. Then, these human skin Strangers appeared out of nowhere and surrounded us.”

“I just don’t understand where these creepy things are coming from. We turned the whole place upside down yesterday and found nothing, so how?” Another watchman cursed.

It was at this moment more watchmen showed up and asked what happened. By the time Ma Shiyuan was done with his account, everyone was staring at the bodies and human skins on the ground with grim expressions.

“This cannot continue. The captain will want to hear about this as soon as possible!”

Everyone agreed that the wisest course of action would be to head back to the village and inform the captain of this incident, so they did. After listening to the full story and realizing the severity of the situation, Lin Hu agreed to organize a thorough search of the village outskirts first thing in the morning.

The watchmen’s efforts would prove to be futile, however. Despite scouring the fields and searching every nook and cranny for the entire day, they would not find even a hint of the human skin Strangers. They had vanished so thoroughly it was as if they had evaporated into thin air. It wasn’t until two days later—when everyone thought that the human skin Strangers had truly been repelled and slowly relaxed their guard—that they reappeared and ambushed multiple squads at the same time, successfully killing a handful of watchmen. Since then, the human skin Strangers would attack the watchmen almost every day.

At first, the human skin Strangers often attacked multiple watchmen squads at the same time, but no one died because they were expecting it, and its weakness was well known. Unfortunately, it got smarter. Just a few days later, they started throwing all of their forces on a single squad, and they retreated immediately after they had dealt a successful blow. As a result, the watchmen started accruing massive casualties in just a short time.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, they still didn’t know where the human skin Strangers were coming from or how they could end its threat once and for all. It wasn’t long before a dark cloud was cast over everyone in the village.

“What the bloody hell are those human skin Strangers? I must have killed at least fifty of them at this point, but still they didn’t give me a single dragon-serpent rune.”

Ye Qing had just come back from another grueling patrol. He was currently lying on his bed and frowning at the sparse number of dragon-serpent runes on the Annon Sutra. The fact that he hadn’t gained any runes from the human skin Strangers despite killing dozens of them could only mean that they weren’t the true body. Specifically, he believed that the human skin Strangers were some sort of doppelganger or puppets-on-strings that were being controlled by a hidden Stranger. So long as the hidden Stranger was still alive, the human skin Strangers were endless, and he wasn’t going to gain dragon-serpent rune.

Ye Qing’s mood soured even more. Assuming he was right, he could only imagine how powerful this hidden Stranger was.

“I need to cultivate faster, but… the gray dragon-serpent runes just aren’t doing it for me anymore,” Ye Qing murmured while staring at three gray dragon-serpent runes on the Annon Sutra.

Ye Qing had been rushing to save himself since the very day he awoke in this world, but that sense of impending doom felt especially clear these days. It was why he made sure to refine two dragon-serpent runes every night, and why he was down to the three runes he had gained from killing the Humanface Grass.

Unfortunately, his hard work had only yielded subpar results so far. Maybe it was because the gray dragon-serpent rune only provided strength and vigor, but his true qi had barely increased despite everything he used. He was still stuck in the early-stage of the Qi Invocation stage.

“I suppose it’s time to consult the Annon Sutra yet again…” Ye Qing sighed. He tried not to rely on the vellum too much, but there was no denying that it was a million times more reliable than the heavens. One rarely answered his prayers at the best of times, while the other would answer any question he asked as long as he gave it enough blood.

“How can I swiftly grow my reservoir of true qi?” Ye Qing asked while cutting open his finger and pouring his blood on the Annon Sutra again. This time, it absorbed two bowls’ worth of blood before it finally gave its answer:

“I had almost exhausted all of my gray dragon-serpent runes, but my true qi has barely grown at all. What should I do?”

“Danger is coming. If I cannot increase my power significantly before it’s too late, I may not live to see the coming dawn. However, I do not have a medicine or a spirit plant that can swiftly increase my true qi. I’m not lucky enough to run into a fairy tale expert who would surrender all of their hard-gotten power to me either. Can I really do nothing but wait to die?”

“No, I remember that there are two silver dragon-serpent runes left on the Annon Sutra. Perhaps they may give me a pleasant surprise.”

“Oh right, the silver dragon-serpent runes! I can’t believe I didn’t think about them!” Ye Qing abruptly slammed the table with his hands while staring at the two shiny runes on the vellum with shiny eyes.

He had, in fact, thought about the silver dragon-serpent runes from time to time. He just overlooked them by accident because he was so used to filtering them out of his usual options.

“Seriously though, this piece of vellum is getting cheekier and cheekier. I’m not lucky enough to run into a fairy tale expert who would surrender all of their hard-gotten power to me? You couldn’t be any less subtle if you tried!”

Ye Qing rolled his eyes before sucking in a deep breath. Then, he pressed a finger on a silver dragon-serpent rune. It immediately slipped into his body with a silver flash.

Unlike the gray dragon-serpent rune, its silver counterpart did not release its contents immediately upon entering his body. It went into his dantian first before—

Boom!

—exploding into a tidal wave of energy. It felt like a storm was happening inside his dantian.

Ye Qing’s eyes widened in surprise and delight when he sensed what energy it was. “This is… origin qi! Incredibly pure origin qi!”

He would’ve celebrated more, but the origin qi started leaking out of his dantian and fading into the background almost immediately.

“Oh shit! I need to refine it before it’s all gone!”

Clearly, the pure origin qi did not count as his even though they had been released inside his dantian. They would disappear eventually if he did not refine and absorb them in time.

The dragon-serpent runes might have given a shortcut, but it was still up to him to make the best of it. Without further ado, Ye Qing hurriedly assumed a pose and began cultivating the “Mental Art of The Toad” once more. As he went through the motions, the raw, unrestrained origin qi in his dantian grew steadily tamer. It was as if an invisible hand was willing it to take a stable form and become Ye Qing’s.

Time passed in the blink of an eye. When the darkness subsided, and light spilled down from the blue sky once more, Ye Qing slowly opened his eyes and gently exhaled a mouthful of turbid air. A shockwave washed out of him and circled one meter away from him like dragons, thick and unfading.

“No wonder its color is different. I can hardly believe how much true qi I’ve gained in one night!” Ye Qing muttered to himself excitedly while perceiving the fog-like energy rolling inside his dantian. If his reservoir of true qi was only as big as a small pond a day ago, now it was the size of a massive river. Not only was his true qi a hundred times bigger than it was before, it was almost thick enough to condense into a cloud form. This meant that he was close to entering the middle-stage of the Qi Invocation stage.

In ascending order, the Qi Invocation stage could be split into early-stage, middle-stage, and late-stage. Each stage corresponded to a specific state of the warrior’s true qi. When a warrior’s true qi was as sparse as a mist, the warrior was at the early-stage of the Qi Invocation stage. When their true qi had condensed enough to form clouds, the warrior was at the middle-stage of the Qi Invocation stage. Finally, when the cloud of true qi had grown so thick that they had transformed into liquid, the warrior was at the late-stage of the Qi Invocation stage.

Ye Qing’s true qi was currently rolling inside his dantian like an impenetrable fog. Assuming his feelings were accurate, he should take no more than a few days to transform the fog into a true cloud and enter the middle-stage of the Qi Invocation stage.

“I still have one silver dragon-serpent rune left. If I refine and absorb it completely, it might just be enough to propel me to the late-stage of the Qi Invocation stage. Chen Zheng certainly isn’t going to be a concern for much longer!”

Right now, Ye Qing was pumping his fist and dancing a little with undisguised smugness. Was he getting a little drunk with success? Hell yes he was! He almost jumped from the early-stage all the way to the middle-stage in a single night! Even the late-stage was but a silver dragon-serpent rune away! If this wasn’t reason enough to indulge a little, then what was?

A few minutes later, Ye Qing finally calmed down and stared at the final silver dragon-serpent rune on the Annon Sutra. He realized then he needed to obtain more of it as soon as possible.

A late-stage Qi Invoker might be a top-tier warrior in August Hill Village, but on a world scale they were still no different from ants. If he was content with just this, he wouldn’t be surprised if he got squished as soon as he stepped into the wider world.

Take Lin Hu for example. The poor captain had been running himself dry trying to deal with the human skin Strangers’ attacks for the past couple days. His heart was in the right place, but he just couldn’t do it with his current strength.

This was why Ye Qing needed power still; far more power than what was thought to be the absolute ceiling in this tiny village. And to gain power, he would need more silver dragon-serpent runes. The gray dragon-serpent rune increased his strength and vigor while the silver dragon-serpent runes increased his true qi. Since the next couple cultivation levels after Qi Invocation—Vessel Augmentation, Astral Refinement and more—could only be achieved with an ocean’s worth of true qi, he could never have enough silver dragon-serpent runes.

It wasn’t going to be easy though. It took at least one thousand gray dragon-serpent runes to form just one silver dragon-serpent rune. The future looked bleak and painful.

Where are the bloody Bloodsucking Mosquitoes when you need them?