The Pastoral Life of a Cultivation Master

Chapter 2956 The Moving Black Mist
After retrieving his helmet and spear, Chen Mo put them into his Qiankun bag. He wouldn't take the Qiankun Pearl out again unless absolutely necessary. Even with an array shielding the Qiankun Pearl's aura, minimizing risk was always preferable.

The Qiankun Pearl was the foundation of his livelihood, and he couldn't afford to lose it. Therefore, he put the helmet and spear into his Qiankun bag first, and would deal with it after returning home.

Actually, he planned to refine all the gold components he had on hand after returning home. Even if he couldn't refine them perfectly, he wanted to refine them to the point where they were easy to collect and use. That way, if he ever needed them, he wouldn't be in such a passive position as he was today.

Of course, Chen Mo had another idea: could he obtain some materials from the gold components and melt them into the jade sword, reforging it to enhance its attack power and durability? He had only recently discovered, during the battle against the king-level beast, that the jade sword still fell short in terms of attack power, sharpness, and other aspects.

The Jade Sword is perfectly adequate for attacking ordinary enemies or objects, but it falls short when dealing with a powerful beast like the one we encountered today. If I hadn't had plenty of other items, I might have suffered a loss today.

Chen Mo didn't believe in the saying "suffering a loss is a blessing." He believed in settling scores on the spot and in overwhelming strength. Therefore, for his own safety in the future, he needed to be prepared. And weapons were one of the manifestations of strength, so being well-prepared with weapons would naturally increase his chances of victory.

His planet is so big, who knows what opportunities might be hidden somewhere?

Being prepared is much better than being unprepared. When opportunities arise, you're more likely to seize them. Otherwise, missing out on opportunities might lead to a lifetime of regret.

Putting aside this king-like beast for now, there are more important things to do.

The battle begins!

Retreat!

After Chen Mo activated the restriction in his hand, he closed the formation. Each of the three composite formations contained a low-level spirit stone. He had just used the formation to trap the king-level beast, which had consumed some of the low-level spirit stones, so he quickly closed the formation to conserve as many as possible.

There is no source of spirit stones on this planet. The only way to obtain spirit stones is through the treasures or ruins left behind by ancient sects.

According to his own deduction, the valley where Chen Mo is now is probably the ruins left behind by a sect. However, after searching for so many days, he has not found a single spirit stone, and he is extremely disappointed.

Therefore, we should cherish the opportunity to consume less.

He quickly retrieved the three spirit stones. Even though they were low-grade spirit stones, they were still very useful in his hands and could be used in many different situations.

Then he cast the restriction again, channeling his true energy to dispel the concealment of the array base, revealing it, and then retracted it one by one. After all, the king-level beast had already been killed, so there was no need for the array to exist anymore; it was better to remove it.

One hundred and eight array bases flew into his arms one by one, and then he put them back into his Qiankun bag.

Sigh, another day of missing the array!
If we had array plates, it wouldn't be so cumbersome, with all the setting up and retrieving. Activating and retrieving array plates is much easier than using array bases, and it also consumes less spiritual energy, while having greater attack power.

Therefore, once you get back, you must repair the array plate. Otherwise, the next time you want to use the array, you'll have to go through the tedious process of setting it up again.

No, after finishing tonight's tasks, he'll repair the array plate when he has time, Chen Mo thought to himself. He wondered if he would encounter any powerful beasts again while searching through the ruins after crossing the canyon.

Therefore, it's best to repair the array plate as soon as possible.

After retracting all three sets of composite formations, Chen Mo returned to the body of the king-like beast.

Although the beast was dead, its imposing aura still lingered, making it impossible for weaker individuals to even stand beside it.

Chen Mo chuckled. Now was the time to reap the rewards!

He took out the jade sword and thrust it directly into the huge wound on the king beast's chest. He then tried to use the blade to widen the wound so that he could find the beast's heart and extract the inner core from it.

However, to Chen Mo's surprise, the jade sword piercing the wound wasn't a problem, since the wound was deep and the beast's internal organs offered little defense, and the jade sword easily pierced through it. But when he tried to widen the wound, he found that the outer skin couldn't be pried open at all, like a dull knife cutting through cowhide; he expended great effort but only managed to cut a tiny distance.

"This beast's defense is damn solid! But the outer skin is quite nice, I like it!" Chen Mo muttered, and immediately took out the helmet spear from his Qiankun bag again, using his divine sense to control the helmet spear and scrape along the wound.

It was as easy as cutting butter with a hot knife.

Sigh! It seems I still don't fully understand the function of this golden helmet spear. I really don't know what material it's made of. It's so sharp, and it even has internal space. It's simply a super treasure.

The king-level beast's heart was very large, but Chen Mo discovered that it wasn't red, but black, and even shiny black. This discovery really surprised him.

"Could this be the legendary black heart?" Chen Mo muttered, glancing at the beast's lungs and finding them red. This black heart was truly strange.

Regardless of its color, the inner core must be retrieved today.

Ignoring everything else, Chen Mo used his golden spear to pierce the heart. At the point where the heart's blood converged, he indeed found a core as large as an adult's fist, shiny black, covered with veins, pitted and somewhat terrifying. Furthermore, this inner core had numerous thin black threads connecting it to the beast's heart, making it seem like a foreign object parasitizing the heart.

Thin black threads, faintly emitting black smoke, were so thin that one wouldn't be able to see them clearly without exceptional eyesight.

When the golden spear approached these black lines, it emitted a hissing sound, indicating that it was corrosive.

Fortunately, the material of the golden helmet and spear was not corroded by the black smoke, and the stained parts remained shiny and new, without any damage.

When Chen Mo heard the sound, he quickly put away his helmet and spear. He scanned the area with his divine sense and found nothing wrong, so he breathed a long sigh of relief.

Looking at the black heart, the hideous black inner core, and the numerous, densely packed black lines, I thought of the king-level beast, which had been hidden in the black mist before it even appeared.

The black mist is corrosive, which means that this powerful beast absorbed it into its body and likely stored it in its inner core. Therefore, it's understandable that the inner core is corrosive.

Furthermore, seeing these black lines reminds me of how, during battle, the king-level beast spews out black pills, which can transform ordinary beasts that devour the pills into beast guards. Moreover, after the beast leader devours them, his injuries can be healed.

This suggests that while the black mist possesses corrosive properties, it must also have other functions. However, I haven't been able to fully investigate them yet, so I don't know their purpose.

However, whether he knew it or not, he was going to take the inner core away and study it carefully to see what its function was.

Without hesitation, he took out a piece of the spiky monster's skin from his Qiankun bag and made it into a simple leather pouch.

After preparing, use the helmet spear to cut off the inner core, and then simply flick it into the leather bag.

The spiky monster's skin has anti-corrosion properties, so it should be able to withstand the corrosive power of this black inner core.

Why not use the skin of the King Beast instead of the skin of the Spiky Monster? The reason is that the skin of the King Beast is so tough that even the Jade Sword has difficulty cutting through it. So it's better to keep it and make it into leather armor or other good things than to use it to store inner cores.

The inner core was wrapped up and put into the Qiankun bag. Now was not the time to observe and study it, as time was limited. Therefore, the hide of the king beast was cut off first.

But just as Chen Mo was about to use his helmet spear to cut through the outer skin, he saw the black heart suddenly begin to emit a large amount of black mist. Upon seeing the mist, Chen Mo immediately stepped aside. After all, this black mist had corrosive properties, so it was best to avoid it as much as possible.

As the black mist spread, the beast's heart melted like butter in a hot pan.

What does this mean? Could it be...?

Chen Mo quickly stepped forward, intending to use his helmet spear to cut open the beast's hide. However, he didn't expect that the beast's skin would also begin to emit black mist, which gradually corroded and intensified, until the entire beast's body began to melt into the black mist, becoming like wax.

Upon seeing this scene, he could only retreat quickly to avoid the black mist.

However, a sense of regret lingered in his heart. What a pity for those animal hides! Such a massive quantity of hides could have been made into many sets of leather armor. But now, they had all melted away and turned into black mist. What a waste!

Of course, he also considered that the melting of the beast's body into black mist might be related to his removal of its inner core.

Back then, this king-like beast hid in the black mist, and only revealed itself after devouring the mist.

So now that its body has turned into black mist, it's probably just a matter of dust returning to dust, ashes returning to ashes.

After the body of the mythical beast turned into black mist, the black mist began to drift towards the canyon, seemingly returning to its lair.

To Chen Mo's surprise, as the black mist drifted into the canyon, all the other alien beast body parts that had been blasted to dust by the energy of the Thunder Sword were corroded by the black mist and became part of it, merging into it.

Gradually, the small black mist began to expand.

Finally, the black mist floated above the canyon and hovered in its original position.

Of course, the current volume of the black fog is vastly different from the original volume. It used to cover the entire canyon, but now it merely resembles a black cloud floating above it.

After the black mist appeared, Chen Mo had been observing it, even using his divine sense to probe it for anything. He found it was just a cloud of black mist, devoid of any signs of life or intelligence; it was merely a black mist.

However, how did this cloud of black mist automatically return to its original position?

That's really strange!