Chapter 20 The Effects of Demon Cores

The voice mechanically repeated itself until Li Chang'an picked up the cultivator's certificate, at which point the voice disappeared.

Guanshan Subdistrict, if he remembers correctly, is near the vegetable market where he sells cabbages.

While tending his stall, he would look around and see signs for Guanshan Street.

Li Chang'an put away his cultivator's certificate, called Black Sword, and planned to go take a look.

Sitting in the black sword, we arrived at the vegetable market in less than ten minutes.

It's much faster than riding in Xie Xuan's car.

The black sword landed steadily on the ground, and only then did Li Chang'an release the sword and jump down.

He held onto the sword tightly the whole way. There was no way to cure his fear of heights, even though his cultivation had improved.

Li Chang'an held the wooden sword, and the black sword returned to its original size and floated beside him. The man and the sword slowly walked forward.

Several streetlights along the street ahead were broken, making the street dark and the area a mess.

Li Chang'an continued walking without stopping, and after walking several dozen more steps, he saw a police cordon at an intersection.

These warning lines were made of magical artifacts, gleaming with golden light. Inside the warning lines was a barrier that isolated the scene inside, preventing mortals from entering and also preventing the monsters inside from escaping.

Li Chang'an is now a Foundation Establishment cultivator, so the cordon will not stop him.

He pulled up the warning line and crawled inside.

Upon entering the barrier, the scene inside immediately came into view.

Two policemen stood at the edge of the cordon, guns pointed at the center, while three other policemen held shields in front of them. One policeman held a chain, the other end of which was tied to a monster.

In the very center of the barrier stood a monster two stories high.

The monster was entirely black, with blackish-purple mucus flowing from its body. It had six tentacles, and the skin on the tentacles cracked like tree bark, with the cracks gleaming with a blackish-purple light.

"Heh..." Bound and unable to move, the monster's head split open, emitting a hoarse and rough sound.

A policeman pulled the trigger, and a bullet gleaming with golden light shot out. It was a talisman bullet blessed by a talisman master, capable of piercing through the demonic possession of a monster.

The talisman bullets hit the monster, and blackish-purple viscous liquid oozed from the bullet holes.

It turns out that the mucus was its blood.

Li Chang'an carefully examined the demonic beast.

In his twenty-two years of life, he had only seen monsters twice.

Once was when I was sixteen, and another time was a little over a month ago, when that mantis demon broke into Xuanling Immortal Mountain.

The monster in front of them was clearly different from the other two monsters.

Li Chang'an stood there dumbfounded, not yet able to figure out what was different, when a policeman glanced at him.

"Are you a cultivator?" the policeman asked, his voice calm and authoritative. "Quickly, the crack is right under that monster's feet, destroy it now!"

"A crack?" Li Chang'an came to his senses and looked at the feet of the monster with a puzzled expression.

Beneath that massive, dark body, a blood-red crack was slowly widening.

You can't see it at all unless you look closely.

Li Chang'an frowned and quickly asked, "How do we destroy it?"

The police officer seemed speechless, staring wide-eyed in disbelief.

Who exactly is the cultivator?!

Then, she said sternly, "Any spell will do, any offensive spell, as long as it can destroy that crack! Otherwise, even more monsters will crawl out!"

As soon as she finished speaking, Li Chang'an saw a monster the size of a six-year-old child crawl out of the crack.

Immediately, the little monster swayed and, with lightning speed, swung its long tail at the policeman holding the chain!

Li Chang'an's eyes widened, and he teleported in front of the policeman. He swung his wooden sword, and with a golden light, he cleaved the little monster in two.

The little monster's corpse fell to the ground, and the policeman nodded and said, "Thank you."

Li Chang'an did not turn around, but stared intently at the crack.

A golden light appeared in his eyes, and he seemed to be able to see more demonic beasts stirring restlessly beneath the crack.

Li Chang'an shook the demon blood off his wooden sword, switched the sword to his left hand, and charged forward.

With his left hand, he swung his wooden sword down, severing one of the giant monster's tentacles. At the same time, with his right hand, he raised his sword fingers and quickly drew a fire talisman.

A flame three or four meters long shot out and gradually engulfed the monster.

Li Chang'an then gathered his spiritual power into the wooden sword in his hand and swung it towards the crack, unleashing a beam of sword light.

The sword light struck the crack, causing it to shatter like glass, turning into red particles that drifted into the air.

At the same time, the monster engulfed in flames screamed incessantly as it turned to ashes.

It's resolved.

The six police officers breathed a sigh of relief.

A dark purple bead rolled out, and Li Chang'an squatted down to pick it up.

He examined the beads with some doubt.

What is this? The inner core of a demonic beast?

The policeman who had spoken to Li Chang'an put away his gun, stepped forward, and said, "Thank you, you came just in time."

The other five police officers put away the cordon, and the barrier slowly disappeared.

Li Chang'an carefully put the beads away and said, "No need to thank me."

The two had barely finished speaking when they heard another hissing sound.

A policeman, holding a compass-like object, said, "There's another crack 300 meters to the east!"

"How could two appear at once?!"

Upon hearing this, the other police officers immediately mounted their motorcycles and sped off in that direction.

Seeing this, Li Chang'an slightly pushed off the ground and teleported several times over short distances, arriving at a place 300 meters to the east.

There was a middle-aged man standing in the middle of the road at the entrance to a residential community.

A crack appeared on the road, and a monster with three pairs of wings and three pairs of eyes suddenly flew out and pounced on the man.

"Get out of the way!!" the policeman shouted hoarsely, throwing out the police tape at the same time.

Li Chang'an frowned and squinted at the man.

If he wasn't mistaken, that person was also a cultivator...

The next second, a flame rose from the man's body. He clenched his fist and punched the monster in the forehead.

The warning line had already flown over, glowing with golden light, and circled around to set up the barrier.

The monster was sent flying backward and crashed into the edge of the barrier.

The six police officers parked their car and took a deep breath, still shaken.

"Are you also a cultivator?" the lead policeman stepped forward and asked.

The man nodded: "Yes, the Alliance sent word, so I rushed over."

Just as the police officer was about to speak, he caught a glimpse of the monster standing up with a hissing sound.

"Oh no!" The policeman immediately drew his gun.

The middle-aged cultivator smiled and raised his hand to stop him: "Save your talisman bullets, don't use them recklessly."

As soon as he finished speaking, flames erupted again on his body, and he charged forward.

Another punch landed squarely on the monster's forehead, followed by another punch on its left cheek...

Li Chang'an gripped the wooden sword, glanced at it a few times, and seeing that the man was handling the situation with ease, stepped forward and severed the crack.

Under the sword light, the crack disappeared, and the demonic beast turned to ashes beneath the middle-aged cultivator's fist.

The six police officers looked at each other in bewilderment.

Wow, that was fast this time!

They carefully packed their belongings again and bowed to the middle-aged cultivator and Li Chang'an.

"Thank you both for your hard work tonight."

The policeman holding the compass said, "The compass is not responding. There won't be any more monster rifts tonight."

The middle-aged cultivator took a breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead upon hearing this: "That's good."

"Then we'll go on patrol." After saying that, the lead policeman nodded to Li Chang'an, turned around, and got on his motorcycle.

After they left, Li Chang'an looked at the middle-aged cultivator.

The middle-aged monk squatted down, picked up a green bead, and carefully wiped off the dust.

Li Chang'an looked thoughtfully at the beads in his hand.

He had just found one of those beads too.

Perhaps sensing Li Chang'an's gaze, the middle-aged cultivator raised his head, tossed the bead in his hand, and said, "This is a demon core, the demon core of a demon beast at the pseudo-core stage or above the golden core stage. It stores some spiritual power and can be used to assist in cultivation."

Li Chang'an was taken aback: "Pseudo-Core Formation Stage?"

"Yes, the Foundation Establishment stage is at its peak, but the core formation stage has not yet been successfully completed."

Li Chang'an touched the bead in his pocket.

It stores spiritual energy...

"You must be Li Chang'an?"

As his thoughts were racing, Li Chang'an heard the middle-aged cultivator ask a question.

Li Chang'an was taken aback: "You know me?"

The middle-aged cultivator smiled and nodded: "You're quite popular in our cultivation world. Besides, you're probably the only cultivator who doesn't understand these basic cultivation principles these days."

Li Chang'an felt embarrassed and touched his temples awkwardly.

Nowadays, most cultivators in the Cangxuan Realm awaken their spiritual roots at the age of six and receive cultivation knowledge education from a young age.

As a cultivator who only began practicing at the age of twenty-two, he indeed didn't understand these common cultivation principles.

The middle-aged cultivator carefully tucked the demon core away and patted Li Chang'an on the shoulder: "It's alright, not understanding these things won't affect your cultivation."

"You were the one who dealt with that monster on Guanshan Street just now, right? Then you must have a demon core too. These things are hard to come by. If a cultivator at or below the mid-Foundation Establishment stage absorbs them properly, they can at least raise their cultivation level by one rank."

Li Chang'an clasped his hands in a gesture of respect and said, "Thank you, senior."

The middle-aged cultivator waved his hand: "It's nothing."

After he finished speaking, he bid farewell to Li Chang'an and turned to leave.

Li Chang'an also turned around and rode the black sword back to Xuanling Immortal Mountain.

He took the bead, but instead of returning to the bamboo house to absorb and cultivate it, he came to the land where millet and sorghum were planted.

Li Chang'an chuckled, dug a deep pit between the two crops, and buried the demon core inside.

The demon core stores spiritual energy, so isn't that just like the Tuangu Insect King, which can fertilize the land?

A note from the author:

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Demon Core:

Improve cultivation level (no)

Fertile land (yes!)