Primordial Era: Starting with slaughtering all the gods and Buddhas in the sky

In the blink of an eye, it was already the third day after the war.

For the next three days, the shelter was filled with a joyful sense of relief after surviving a catastrophe. Mountains of snake meat filled everyone's stomachs, and the emaciated children finally regained some color in their faces.

Deep inside the cave, in a naturally formed stone chamber.

It was dark and damp here, with only a few drops of water occasionally dripping from the stalactites at the top, making a crisp sound as they hit the rock.

Huang Chen sat cross-legged on a flat bluestone. He tapped his knees lightly with his fingers, and with a thought, he summoned the system panel.

A cold, blue light curtain illuminated the dimly lit stone chamber.

[Host: Huang Chen]

[Realm: Peak of Qi Refining and Spirit Transformation]

[Cultivation Techniques: Ancient Body Tempering Scripture (Volume 1), Witch Clan Body Tempering Technique (Fragment)]

Available Karma Points: 52300

"Open the store," Huang Chen silently commanded in his mind.

The screen flickered, and a dazzling list of items unfolded. Ignoring the flashy, disposable items and talismans, my gaze was immediately fixed on the cultivation techniques section.

[The Ancient Body Forging Scripture (Volume Two): Price: 40000 Karma Points.]

Huang Chen's eyelids twitched; Volume Two had doubled to 40,000 karmic points.

"exchange."

[Ding! 40000 Karma Points deducted. Exchange successful.]

A blinding dark golden light suddenly shot out from the void and struck straight into the center of his forehead.

"Well!"

Huang Chen groaned and gripped the blue stone beneath him tightly with both hands.

Their fingers sank into the hard rock instantly, and gravel fell down in a shower.

A massive, terrifying flow of information exploded in his mind.

Those are not simple words, but rather a series of tragic scenes depicting the ancient people's struggle against heaven and earth, and their tearing apart of gods and demons.

Immediately afterwards, an extremely violent surge of heat rose from his dantian.

This surge of heat, like a wild horse, surged wildly through his meridians. Wherever it passed, the meridians ruptured inch by inch, only to rapidly regenerate under the nourishment of a mysterious power.

"Click click click..."

Huang Chen's bones began to crackle like thunder, his body temperature rose sharply, and his skin turned bright red, like a red-hot iron.

The sweat was instantly evaporated into white mist by the terrifying heat. The entire stone chamber was quickly filled with this white mist.

Huang Chen gritted his teeth, tasting the strong metallic flavor of blood in his mouth. His muscles were spasming violently, and the veins bulged under his skin like angry pythons.

As the Ancient Body Forging Scripture operated automatically, the spiritual energy in the surrounding world seemed to be drawn in some way.

The originally sparse spiritual energy transformed into tiny vortexes, surging wildly towards Huang Chen's body.

It roughly penetrated his body through every pore on his skin.

Dark gold patterns began to appear on the skin.

Previously, these things only appeared occasionally on his body, but now they seem to be alive, slowly spreading and intertwining on Huang Chen's chest, arms, and back.

With each flash of the patterns, Huang Chen's physical strength increased by one point.

I could clearly feel my blood becoming as heavy as lead and mercury, and each heartbeat felt like beating a huge war drum, producing a dull "thump-thump" sound.

The transformation lasted for a full two hours.

[Ding! Congratulations, host, your physical body cultivation has broken through to the early stage of Refining Spirit and Returning to Emptiness.]

Huang Chen casually picked up a piece of blue stone about the size of a watermelon from beside him.

His five fingers tightened suddenly.

"Bang!"

The hard bluestone did not shatter into pieces, but was directly crushed into extremely fine powder, which slipped through his fingers.

It was purely physical strength, without using a single trace of spiritual power.

"Early stage of Refining Spirit and Returning to Emptiness... I have absolutely no problem fighting against the peak of the same level." Huang Chen shook the stone dust off his hands.

The air was filled with the fishy smell of the swamp, along with an increasingly strong stench of decay.

Temperatures began to rise, and the corpses of more than three thousand snake demons piled up like mountains.

Several flies buzzed and hovered over the bloody, mangled cut surface.

Dozens of clansmen were looking around the mountain of corpses, deep in worry.

Such a huge quantity cannot be burned all, and burying it is too much trouble.

Huang Chen strode forward.

"Chop it all up."

The tribesmen holding bone knives were stunned.

"Go to the edge of the swamp, dig ten large pits, and remove all the silt and decaying leaves from the bottom."

These demonic beasts' flesh and blood contain abundant spiritual energy; to simply throw them away would be a terrible waste.

Although the tribespeople were puzzled, they obeyed Huang Chen's words without question. Dozens of bone knives flew up and down, cutting the snake demon's corpse into pieces.

Huang Chen personally guided them in setting up the fermentation tank. The bottom layer was covered with a thick layer of swampy decaying leaves, the middle layer with chopped snake demon flesh and blood, and then covered with a layer of wood ash and soil.

Layer upon layer, finally sealed with a thick layer of soil.

"Water it every day to keep it moist, and turn it over again every few days." Huang Chen patted the soil off his hands.

The spiritual energy of the demonic beast's flesh and blood rapidly decomposed in the enclosed, high-temperature environment, merging with the decaying leaves. Just five days later, when the soil was dug up, the pungent, fishy stench had disappeared, replaced by a rich, earthy fragrance.

The dark brown manure was transported by truck to the open space behind the mountain.

Huang Chen had people cultivate terraced fields along the mountain slopes.

This type of terrain is best at retaining moisture and nutrients. After the fermented nutrients are spread on top, a visible miracle occurs.

Crops that normally take months to germinate broke through the soil the very next morning.

The tender green wheat seedlings swayed gently in the breeze, emanating a faint, ethereal energy.

"It's growing! It's really growing!" The clansman responsible for looking after the farmland was so excited that his eyes welled up with tears.

With these magical fertilizers, the crop growth cycle was forcibly compressed several times. The food crisis in the shelter finally saw a turning point.

After arranging things at the farmland, Huang Chen turned and headed towards the forging area.

Before we even got close, we heard a series of rapid clanging sounds.

Old Tie was shirtless and covered in sweat. He swung a huge iron hammer with both hands and smashed it hard onto a palm-sized black scale.

"Clang!" Sparks flew everywhere.

The old man's hands went numb from the shock, and the sledgehammer almost flew out of his hand.

The scales were as smooth as a mirror, without even a white mark.

"This thing is too hard." Old Tie wiped the sweat from his face and shook his head repeatedly. "It can't be burned red-hot, and it can't be broken by hammering."

"It's simply impossible to make it into a complete suit of armor."

Huang Chen stepped forward and picked up the cold, black scale.

"Who said we were going to make a whole suit of armor?" Huang Chen retorted.

Old Tie paused for a moment, then wiped his hands with the straw from his neck.

"How can you wear it if it's not connected?"

Huang Chen picked up a bone pen from the side and drew a few sketches on the ground.

"Assembly line, modular design," Huang Chen pointed to the diagram on the ground. "Break down the process. No need to build a complete suit of armor."

The old man leaned closer, squinting at the lines on the ground.

"Look," Huang Chen pointed to the edge of the scales with his bone pen, "this thing is made up of individual scales. All we need to do is drill small holes at the four corners of each scale using the venomous fangs of a demon beast."

"Then they used the snake demon's sinews as thread to string them together like weaving a bamboo mat."

Huang Chen raised his head and looked at Lao Tie.

"The first group is responsible for drilling holes with venomous fangs. The second group is responsible for polishing the barbs on the edges of the scales."

The third group was specifically responsible for threading the needle with snake tendons.

Lao Tie's eyes widened more and more.

"This way, even women and children with no forging experience can help thread the needle!"

"That's right." Huang Chen nodded. "Moreover, with this modular snake scale armor, if any piece breaks in battle, you can simply remove the snake tendon and replace it with a new one."

Without saying a word, Lao Tie turned around and ran towards the crowd.

"Ah Da, go and remove the fangs! Ah Er, go and pull out the snake's tendons!"

In less than half a day, the first modular snake scale armor was assembled.

The black scales were layered upon layered, tightly pressed together. With the twisting of its body, the scales emitted a teeth-grinding grinding sound, demonstrating an astonishing level of defensive power.

As evening fell, Huang Chen summoned the entire clan to the central square.

More than a hundred people stood in neat rows, their eyes fixed intently on Huang Chen on the high platform.

Although they have eaten their fill these past few days, most of the tribespeople are still physically weak.

Even with the protection of snake scale armor, one cannot exert their fighting power when encountering monsters.

"From today onwards, everyone must train their bodies," Huang Chen said in a deep voice.

In the past two days, I have disassembled the breathing method of the Ancient Body Tempering Scripture, removing those violent spiritual energy circulation routes and retaining only the most basic breathing rhythm.

At the same time, it incorporates the power exertion movements from the fragments of the Witch Clan Battle Body Manual, and choreographs an extremely bizarre set of movements.

"Watch closely."

Huang Chen bent his legs slightly, adopting a posture similar to a tiger descending a mountain, his chest heaving violently as he let out an extremely long inhale.

Immediately afterwards, he twisted his waist and hips sharply, and slowly threw out a punch. The movement was extremely slow, but it carried a muffled sound like thunder.

"call!"

He exhaled a breath of turbid air, which transformed into a white arrow of energy that shot more than three feet away.

The tribespeople were dumbfounded.

"Follow me, pay attention to your breathing rhythm, move slowly, and squeeze out all the strength from your bones," Huang Chen shouted.

People began to imitate clumsily.

At first, the square was swaying and many people couldn't even stand up straight.

But as Huang Chen repeatedly corrected their breathing rhythm, in less than the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, everyone's skin began to turn red.

Wisps of white steam rose from above.

"It's so hot..." A thin boy gritted his teeth, his whole body drenched in sweat.

But he didn't stop; instead, he felt a warm current flowing through his meridians.

This simplified version of the body tempering exercise is extremely demanding on physical strength, but it can maximize the stimulation of the latent blood energy of the human race.

Every morning and evening, a unified shout can be heard in the square.

[Ding! Detected that the host is pushing forward the progress of human civilization and altering the tribal's survival status.]

[Side quest triggered: Human infrastructure (self-sufficiency).]

[Mission Requirements: Establish a complete agricultural cycle and industrial production line, and popularize basic skills to raise the shelter's overall survival capability to Level C.]

[Task Rewards: Merit points and special building blueprints will be awarded based on completion progress.]

Huang Chen glanced at the blue light screen on his retina and casually waved it away.

Everything at the shelter is getting back on track.

The faces of the tribespeople finally regained color, and their eyes shone with light.

In the dead of night, the noisy shelter fell into slumber.

Huang Chen walked alone down the stone steps to the array eye chamber deep underground.

This is the core of the Flame Array.

The air was filled with a burnt smell.

On the huge bronze array plate, the originally dense array patterns have now become dim and dull, with one-third of them gone.

While resisting the onslaught of the Black Scale Demon King and the three thousand snake demons, the great formation was overloaded and severely damaged.

Huang Chen walked to the groove in the center of the array plate, where the remaining few hundred low-grade spirit stones were piled up.

At this moment, these spirit stones are losing their luster at a visible rate. The once crystal-clear stones are now tinged with a grayish-white deathly aura at their edges.

"Click."

A soft sound rang out sharply in the silent stone chamber.

Huang Chen looked down.

A crack appeared on the surface of the topmost spirit stone.

Immediately afterwards, the cracks spread rapidly.

"Bang.

'

The spirit stone shattered completely, turning into a pool of grayish-white powder.

Huang Chen squatted down and grabbed a handful of powder.

After the formation was damaged, the rate of spiritual energy loss was more than ten times faster than expected. In order to maintain the formation at a minimum level of operation, the consumption of spirit stones reached a terrifying number.

The spirit stones seized from the spirit mine were originally thought to last for more than half a year.

It seems that we can only hold on for another half month at most.

If no new spirit stone veins are found in half a month, the Firewood Array will completely stop operating. At that time, the shelter, without the protection of the array, will be like a piece of fragrant, fatty meat in the Hundred Thousand Mountains.