Chapter 98 - Reaping Spoils Of The Battle
Chapter 98 Reaping Spoils Of The Battle
Ou Yangming’s body swayed slightly. After killing Zhang Yinli with the final slash, he seemed to be dispirited as his body was on the verge of collapsing. He held his forehead while slowly squatting down, and grimaced in pain because his temples were somewhat hurting, as though something was going to emerge from it. Of course, no signs could be seen if one only looked at his outer appearance.
Ou Yangming knew that he was feeling this because he had overused his mental power.
He had 20 points of mental power, which was much more than his other attributes. This was why he could smith explosive arrows, achieve the state of the integration of Heaven and man, and control the power during the Blood Flights.
Nonetheless, there was a price to pay for using his mental power. In particular, the mental power consumed during the Blood Flight was not at all lesser than what was needed to perform appraisal art. If Ou Yangming wanted to control the skill while moving at the speed of light, greater mental power was required.
Throughout the pursuit and flight of these past few days, though they both took breaks in between, the short periods were insufficient for Ou Yangming to restore his mental power to peak condition.
Therefore, when he insisted on killing Zhang Yinli after just arriving at Yin Grade, there was a mental power backlash.
After sitting quietly for some time, the splitting headache slowly went away. That said, Ou Yangming felt extremely sleepy, and wanted very badly to sleep for three days and three nights. Nevertheless, he knew that he would likely become a wild beast’s meal if he did that, and would never wake up anymore.
Hence, Ou Yangming inhaled deeply to circulate an ice-cold gas between his nasal cavity, his thorax, and his stomach. He did that to squeeze every ounce of energy from his body.
At this moment, Ou Yangming missed the fearsome yet powerful half-spirit beast very much.
The Devouring attribute was extremely effective, but he realized that the ability could only be used to replenish his Qi, blood, and energy. A wild beast’s flesh and blood could not be used to recover his mental power.
Ou Yangming could only recover his mental power if he absorbed energy from a half-spirit beast’s flesh and blood, it could even be improved. Needless to say, if a half-spirit beast actually showed up right now, the first thing he would do was escape.
He was not mad enough to challenge a half-spirit beast on his own.
After curbing his thoughts, Ou Yangming forced himself to gather his energy. The Military Fire burned as he swung his wrist, and he attached the Devouring attribute onto his military saber once more. Ou Yangming had purposely cast the attribute aside when he exchanged blows with Zhang Yinli earlier because he wanted to preserve his head.
When he took the head and looked at the man’s hideous face, he suddenly realized that he was not appalled at all, but in high spirits.
Ou Yangming was slightly moved. He recalled what Zhang Yinli had said, so he began searching his dead body for some time. Ou Yangming’s eyes soon lit up because he found some things. Apart from some gold and silver notes, he discovered some treasures.
The most valuable one among them was probably the Fire-absorbing Badge.
This was the second Fire-absorbing Badge that Ou Yangming had seen. It was still in the same form, but he activated his Military Fire right away to absorb the Devouring attribute as he knew very well how terrifying the badge was. Once the badge lost the attribute, it turned into ashes and disappeared.
It seemed like the Fire-absorbing Badge only existed to store the Devouring attribute, thus once the ability disappeared, its body was gone too.
Other than the badge, Ou Yangming also found a robe and a pair of leather boots.
The robe was rather odd as it felt extremely tough, unlike normal robes. The sleeves, that were heavy and layered, would seem like two long whips if they were flapped. Unfortunately, due to the slashes from a military saber at the peak of High Grade, the robe was already ripped and could be considered worthless.
As for the leather boots, Ou Yangming was pretty shocked.
They were actually a rare piece of Good Grade equipment.
In actual fact, Ou Yangming had smithed countless pieces of equipment by now. He was starting to make little of High Grade Attribute Equipment, let alone those that were of Good Grade.
However, this was his first time stumbling upon a pair of leather boots.
As his Military Fire burned, the boot’s attributes appeared in his head.
[Item: Outstanding leather boot (Red)]
(Equivalent Rank: Ordinary Tool, Good Grade, Rank Three]
[Attributes: Toughness +8, Agility +1] Overall, the leather boots had 2 points of Agility.
It was not impressive because it was similar to what his greaves contained, but these were leather boots, which were not included in a normal soldier’s equipment set. If Ou Yangming could grasp the method to refine leather boots, would he not gain another type of equipment?
Despite that, Ou Yangming could not find the key to produce leather boots no matter how he studied the ones in his hands.
It was not strange at all because it was not easy for someone from a certain trade to comprehend something from a different trade. If he could actually grasp the technique by taking a few looks at the boots, he would be considered a deity instead of a human.
That being said, Ou Yangming could confirm after seeing the leather boots that the type of equipment existed in the world. Since that was the case, there was a place where boots were produced, and he could possibly learn the way they were made.
Apart from that, Zhang Yinli carried some small items too, but they did not catch Ou Yangming’s attention.
Honestly, a Yang Grade powerhouse should not be carrying only these items. However, Zhang Yinli was attacking a Force Grade martial artist, and as smart as he was, he could not have expected to encounter a madman like Ou Yangming. Thus, he set out conveniently instead of being fully equipped.
Who knew, the person whom he had only treated like an ant or a clam turned out to be a hungry wolf.
In the end, he ended up worse off from trying to gain an advantage. Not only did he fail to capture Ou Yangming, but he also gave up his life.
Ou Yangming cleaned up the area, then pondered while sitting beside the corpse.
He had exposed many of his weaknesses and shortcomings throughout the battle, which was something he needed to fix.
While he had the experience of going deep into the dense forest, and had fought against many people, he had never really been in a life-or-death battle other than the time he went all out against Zhang Hanyu. Hence, when Zhang Yinli suddenly appeared and killed many soldiers at the speed of light, Ou Yangming actually panicked and was on the brink of falling apart.
It was true that his waist sash carried two unique skills, and he was extremely confident about escaping, which was why he returned to the scene instead of abandoning his horse to escape when the horse went crazy. That being said, Ou Yangming was actually hesitant back then.
If he had been decisive and fierce, perhaps the outcome would have been different, whether he fought bravely or decided to flee right away.
As for when his arms were broken by Zhang Yinli after he fell off the horse, it was his biggest mistake.
If Ou Yangming faced the attack steadily instead of being panicked, based on his magical state of the integration of Heaven and man, how could he have been injured by one kick?
It was the result of mercy from Zhang Yinli, who wanted to interrogate Ou Yangming to find out the Fire-absorbing Badge’s whereabouts. If Zhang Yinli had thought about killing Ou Yangming from the start, Ou Yangming would have likely died without being given the chance to turn the tables.
At the end of the day, Ou Yangming concluded that he lacked combat experience, which caused a series of mistakes. He could not help but feel guilty and ashamed after thinking about it carefully.
Nonetheless, nobody knew everything the moment they were born. Wisdom came from experience.
Ou Yangming learned his lesson from the unforeseen event. If something similar occurred in the future, he would definitely face it differently.
His eyes twitched a little as he suddenly heard soft voices coming from a bush.
He had not buried Zhang Yinli’s corpse after killing him, and had not transformed the man’s flesh and blood into Qi and blood for his own use.
Transforming a human’s flesh and blood? It was actually something unacceptable to Ou Yangming. Unless he came across a special situation like the one with Zhang Hanyu, he would rather spend his energy on killing ferocious beasts as he was unwilling to regain Qi and blood by using the flesh and blood of his kind.
Since Ou Yangming had not really dealt with the corpse, the bloody smell from it spread and attracted other wild beasts. It was actually Ou Yangming’s goal. When his Military Fire burned, the Devouring +1 attribute in his military saber increased to +2.
At that moment, a forest leopard jumped out from a bush. It had a beautiful and fit physique, and its body was fully extended when it pounced on Ou Yangming.
Even though it was actually drawn here because of the corpse’s blood, it was natural for it to first take out the human that was alive.
Nevertheless, the forest leopard in mid-air suddenly realized that its target disappeared. The seemingly weary human that was sitting on the ground had strangely vanished from its sight.
Before the leopard figured out what was going on, its belly hurt, and it instantly lost consciousness.
Seeing as the forest leopard’s blood and flesh quickly transformed into energy and disappeared, Ou Yangming’s face changed. The effect of Devouring +2 was much stronger than when it was only +1.
This was not only reflected in the devouring speed, but most importantly, Ou Yangming also sensed that he recovered more Qi and blood than he had imagined. In other words, the conversion rate had increased. The original 10% energy conversion from blood and flesh had increased to 15% or even 20%.
Though the increase was not much, it was great news for Ou Yangming.
This meant that he would need to absorb a smaller amount of flesh and blood in the future.
When he inspected his military saber carefully, he exclaimed at the Devouring attribute’s feature.
Normally, other than a piece of embedded equipment, a piece of High Grade equipment could store only 4 points of Unique Attributes at most, but the Devouring attribute was clearly not included. Even when Ou Yangming’s military saber possessed 2 points of Devouring attributes, it was not a burden at all, as though the attribute could be layered without a limit.
Ou Yangming shook his head and continued waiting for prey. He killed every animal that came, replenished his Qi and blood until they were abundant again, then finally left with Zhang Yinli’s head.
As for the corpse, there were many creatures in the dense forest that would deal with it for him.