Grasping Evil

Originally, he thought Ning Fan would fail to cure Revered Snow and provoke him to snatch the Cold Pine Essence. He then could retrieve the Shadow Carrier Sword and let Ning Fan taste humiliation. Perhaps, he might even be able to take Ning Fan’s life!

However, those thoughts could only exist in his mind. The Four Revolution Pills were successfully refined signifying that Ning Fan could really cure Revered Snow.

Once Revered Snow is cured, Ning Fan would leave a favorable impression to Revered Snow and receive protection from him. Until then, Yun Kuang would not dare to make Ning Fan his enemy in public even if Yun Kuang was under the protection of one of the elders.

Why wouldn’t he dare? It was because he was afraid of offending Revered Snow!

“This hatred…I have no other options but to endure it.”

He gritted his teeth while reluctance overtook his face. Suddenly, a mouthful of blood was spat out of his mouth.

…

The completion of Four Revolution Pills within six days attracted a lot of attention. Many of the cultivators guessed the level of his Pill Refining Technique.

However, what’s the point of making guesses? They only served to make Ning Fan even more mysterious. Ning Fan could just casually clear everyone’s doubts by claiming that the pills were special and refining them didn’t consume much time.

Deep inside the waterfall, Revered Snow consumed the Seven Yin Yang Profound Pill. The poison within his body began to dissipate and his aura started to recover.

Ning Fan stayed at the vicinity as well because he discovered that it contained powerful spiritual qi and an idea flashed in his mind.

Little Dugu once gave him an ancient scroll which contained a secret sword technique, Sword Finger. This technique allowed the practitioner to refine the body as a sword. It was an indeed a powerful Body Refining Technique. But the conditions of cultivating this technique were extremely harsh. Ning Fan would need to absorb five elements of spiritual veins using his finger. Moreover, there’s a certain requirement for the quality of the spiritual veins. For the first finger, he would need to at least absorb the spiritual veins that could only be found in Nascent Soul Realm sects.

Those veins didn’t exist in low-grade cultivation countries. Fortunately, they would certainly exist in a mid-grade cultivation country like Great Jin!

Besides, Ju Shan Guan was the place with the best quality of spiritual veins in Great Jin. Even the division of Rain Palace was built at this city.

These spiritual veins would be very suitable for cultivating the sword finger…

However, there was a drawback of that cultivation method. If Ning Fan really cultivates the technique in this city, the spiritual veins within the vicinity of a thousand li surrounding Ju Guan Shan would be destroyed. The cultivators from Great Jin would undoubtedly be infuriated by his action.

If Revered Snow has my back, then the cultivation would go smoothly. But the question is, would he lend me a hand?

Or let’s just draw the troubles to Revered Snow. I’ll just make everyone think that Revered Snow destroyed the spiritual veins of Ju Shan Guan by mistake while he was healing his injuries.

With that decision in mind, Ning Fan kept his composure and offered to refine a few types of qi recovery pills for Revered Snow. Revered Snow delightedly accepted his offer.

This time, Ning Fan intentionally delayed the steps in refining pills. His left hand was used to refine pills while one of his finger from his right hand touched gently on the ground, rotating the secret incantation of the technique in his mind.

Traces of spiritual veins gradually flowed into the tip of his index finger. A excruciating pain could be felt on his finger. However, to him, this degree of pain was not comparable to the pain of consuming the third Jade Royal Pill back when he was at the Demon Sinister Forest. There was no way he wouldn’t be able to endure this pain!

The spiritual qi of the veins started to enter his finger. He then slowly adapted his body to the spiritual qi that had just entered.

As time passed, his finger seemed to have transformed into a sword with the body of the sword forged by the power of mountains and rivers. Strands of spiritual qi from the veins turned his finger transparent, and eventually turning it into sword light.

Suddenly, an image of a beautiful girl appeared in Ning Fan’s mind. She flew towards a group of devils in front her and with just a flick of her finger, a sword light flashed across them, killing every single one of them.

Not enough, it’s still not enough!

Three days passed by and his speed of absorption became faster. The entire Tian Chi Waterfall trembled.

They thought of that trembling as the effect of Ning Fan’s pill refinement. As for Revered Snow who was right beside Ning Fan, his eyes widened. He was secretly amazed that Ning Fan was refining pills and absorbing the spiritual power of the earth veins at the same time.

“This kid claimed that he was refining pills but he’s actually using that as an excuse to absorb spiritual power. He is indeed intelligent…” The corner of his mouth quirked up and formed an admiring smile. However, he assumed that Ning Fan was absorbing the spiritual veins forcefully using a secret art to increase his cultivation realm. From his point of view, Ning Fan wouldn’t be able to absorb much of the spiritual veins as he was only at the Half-Step Gold Core Realm.

Seven days later, he regretted his earlier statement and let out a bitter smile.

Two-thirds of the veins’ spiritual qi in Tian Chi Waterfall had been absorbed by Ning Fan and the process of absorption was still ongoing.

Is this kid planning to destroy the spiritual veins?! What technique exactly is he cultivating? It has such domineering power that could even ruin the spiritual veins of this place…

Despite knowing that, Revered Snow didn’t try to stop Ning Fan. No matter what, he would still help Ning Fan just because of Ning Fan’s identity, let alone him still owing Ning Fan a favour.

At the tenth day, the aroma of the pills spread from the cauldron. Meanwhile, a sharp cracking sound resounded in the entire Ju Shan Guan!

The Earth Veins were completed ruined!

The cultivation of the first sword finger was finally accomplished!

Ning Fan slapped the lid of the cauldron. He didn’t look at the pills in the cauldron but his eyes were fixed on his right index finger instead!

Sword Finger, The First Finger! “Mountain Crush”!

The whole power of the earth veins a thousand li surrounding the city was now gathered in his finger!

“It’s really a terrifying Body Refinement Technique! By just exerting force with this finger, it almost exhausted all my strength. But the power of this finger is enough to eliminate a cultivator at the Intermediate Nascent Soul Stage in just a single touch!”

Ning Fan muttered to himself while keeping his original expression on his face.

He then stood up and Revered Snow followed his actions too. Revered Snow flew out the waterfall to handle the tribulations from the heavens. When he returned, he deliberately furrowed his brows together and spoke.

“Hai. The earth veins are all destroyed!”

“Senior, please forgive me. When I was refining pills, I was lacking magic power. As such, I tried to obtain some of the spiritual qi from the earth veins. Unfortunately, I destroyed the earth veins out of carelessness. Could Senior help me to settle this as a payback of the favour you owed me?”

“It’s fine. I’ve promised to help you once. So it’s natural that I would help you handle this problem. However, the blame shouldn’t be on you. You are just refining pills for me after all. I should bear the responsibility. You can ask for my help one more time in the future, considering that I still owe you a favour.”

What Ning Fan had in mind at first was to get Revered Snow to help him this time as he still owed Ning Fan a favour.

Now, Revered Snow seemed to be very willing to take all the blames for Ning Fan.

Refining Four Revolutions Pills for two times and it cost the entire spiritual vein of the city. Though the fact was still difficult to accept, it seemed forgivable as Revered Snow was involved in the destruction of the veins. No one would dare to find out more about it including the King of Great Jin.

The division of Rain Palace planned to move to another place at the destruction of the veins. Anyway, they were going to abandon this city as the demon tide had caused great damage to it already.

Revered Snow’s action left Ning Fan surprised and puzzled as he took the initiative to be friendly towards Ning Fan.

Ning Fan’s expectation was that Revered Snow would at least not disagree with him.

Now, it seemed to be far beyond his anticipations. It was as if Revered Snow was trying to befriend him.

“Why does he act in such a manner? Is it because of the level of my Pill Refining Technique?” It was incomprehensible for him, but he didn’t voice out his doubts.

As long as Revered Snow doesn’t see me as an enemy and he isn’t pretending to be kind, there’s nothing to worry about.

Now, the cultivation of the first finger of Sword Finger technique is completed. I now have another trump card.

The next thing to do is prepare for the final battle! I will end the demon tide, gather enough battle points and depart from this place!

Note :

1. Measurements :

   a. li = 500 metres

   b. zhang = 3.13 metres