he forest floor was slick with dew and blood.
Wuxu stood over the corpse of a Rank 1 Spiked Boar. He placed his hand on its head.
"Deconstruct."
[Entropy: +10]
[Progress: 30/400]
He sighed. The grind was slow. At this rate, cleaning the forest of 40 beasts would take days, and the local wildlife was starting to instinctively avoid his territory. The "Zone of Silence" had become a Zone of Fear.
He needed a lure.
CRACK.
The sound of snapping timber echoed from the east. Not the natural sound of a tree falling, but the violent, splintering sound of a tree being smashed through.
Then came the screaming.
"Help! Is anyone there?! I'll pay! I have Spirit Stones!"
Wuxu's head tilted. The voice was desperate, high-pitched, and heavy with the panting of an obese man running for his life.
Wuxu didn't move to help. He checked his System.
[Shift Cooldown: 2 Days, 10 Hours.]
[Current Position: Stationary.]
"If he wants to live," Wuxu whispered, wiping boar blood from his hands, "he has to come to me."
The Fatty and the Pack.
Seconds later, a figure burst through the ferns.
He was a round, sweaty cultivator in torn yellow silk robes. He clutched a heavy sack to his chest like a newborn baby. His face was pale, his cultivation fluctuating wildly—a Layer 6 Qi Condensation, but clearly unstable, likely pill-boosted.
Behind him, the undergrowth exploded.
Three Red-Eye Demon Wolves (Rank 1 Peak) leaped out. They were followed by a larger, darker shadow—a Dire Alpha (Rank 2 Initial).
A Rank 2 Beast was equivalent to a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Wuxu's eyes narrowed. 'Rank 2 Core. Estimated Entropy: 50.'
The fatty saw Wuxu. He saw a man covered in dried blood, standing in a circle of bones, looking calm. To the fatty, this was either a savior or a demon. He chose to gamble on the savior.
"Daoist Friend!" the fatty shrieked, stumbling toward the clearing. "Save me! I am Luo Yi, a traveling merchant! I'll give you half my cargo!"
The Alpha Wolf roared, a soundwave that flattened the grass. Luo Yi tripped, face-planting into the dirt ten meters away from Wuxu.
The wolves closed in.
Wuxu stood still. He stood exactly at the edge of his 10-Chi (3.3 Meter) radius.
"The price is not half," Wuxu said. His voice cut through the growling clearly.
Luo Yi scrambled backward, watching the jaws of the Alpha open. "All of it! Take all of it! Just use a talisman or something!"
"Deal."
Wuxu extended his hand.
"Inventory."
He didn't store the fatty. He stored the air between them. The sudden vacuum created a massive suction force.
Luo Yi was yanked forward, sliding across the mud as the air rushed to fill the void. He slid past Wuxu's ankles and into the circle.
The Alpha Wolf, expecting its prey to be stationary, bit down on empty space.
It looked up at Wuxu.
The beast sensed something wrong. This human didn't smell like fear. He smelled like... nothing.
The Alpha snarled, signaling the pack to attack. Three wolves lunged at once.
They crossed the line.
[Domain Entry Detected.]
[Target Count: 3.]
[Law Application: Kinetic Vector Reversal.]
Wuxu didn't just stop them. He bounced them.
The wolves hit an invisible wall of force. Their forward momentum was instantly converted into backward momentum. They were blasted away as if they had hit a rubber wall at 60 mph.
CRACK. SNAP.
Spines broke. They landed in a heap, whining.
The Alpha Wolf froze. It was intelligent. It knew trap arrays. But it saw no flags.
Wuxu looked down at the shivering fat man at his feet.
"Stay inside the line," Wuxu ordered. "You are the bait."
Wuxu stepped out of the Domain.
Luo Yi's eyes bugged out. "Are you crazy?! That's a Rank 2 Alpha! It has Steel Fur! You need a flying sword!"
Wuxu cracked his neck. Layer 5 Artificial Body.
"I don't use swords."
The Alpha saw Wuxu leave the safety of the circle. It roared in triumph. The magic in its blood surged, reinforcing its fur until it shone like metallic obsidian. It charged, faster than an arrow.
Wuxu watched it come.
Speed: 40 m/s.
Mass: 600 kg.
Force: Lethal.
Wuxu didn't dodge. He channeled every ounce of his Artificial strength into his right leg.
He waited until the beast was one meter away.
"Anchor: Max Density."
He kicked.
He didn't kick the wolf. He kicked the ground in front of the wolf.
BOOM.
The earth exploded. A wall of dirt and stone erupted upward.
The Alpha smashed through the debris, blinded for a microsecond. In that fraction of time, Wuxu side-stepped.
He grabbed the wolf's tail as it flew past.
A normal man's arm would be ripped off. Wuxu's arm was a hydraulic piston. He planted his feet, carving trenches into the soil, and pulled.
The wolf's momentum was arrested violently. It whipped around, snapping at Wuxu.
Wuxu spun, using the centrifugal force to swing the 600kg beast like a flail.
He swung it toward the Domain.
"Catch," Wuxu whispered.
He released the tail. The wolf flew into the 10-Chi Radius.
[Domain Entry.]
[Law: Reinforcement Nullified.]
The "Steel Fur" vanished. The beast became soft flesh.
It crashed next to Luo Yi. The fat merchant screamed, scrambling away.
Wuxu walked back into the circle. He drew a jagged bone knife from his belt.
The wolf tried to stand, but inside the Domain, Wuxu controlled the friction of the ground. The beast slipped, helpless.
Wuxu walked up to the Alpha. He didn't gloat. He plunged the bone knife into its eye, piercing the brain.
[Target Eliminated.]
[Rank 2 Core Harvested.]
Wuxu turned to Luo Yi. The merchant was shaking, clutching his sack.
"Rank 2 Core," Wuxu said, holding up the bloody sphere. "That's 50 points."
He looked at Luo Yi.
"Now. Show me what you bought your life with."
Luo Yi swallowed hard, looking at the dead monster, then at the cold, emotionless boy.
"I... I am a courier for the Black Market," Luo Yi stammered, opening his sack. "I was transporting goods to the Iron Grave Sect entrance exams."
He pulled out a map and a strange, dark token made of cold iron.
"This is a recommendation token," Luo Yi whispered. "It allows entry without a background check."
Wuxu stared at the token. It was cold, heavy, and smelled of dried blood—an entry pass to a slaughterhouse.
"Iron Grave Sect," Wuxu mused, running his thumb over the jagged iron.
'System,' Wuxu thought. 'Status Report.'
[Body Status: Artificial Layer 5.]
[Aura Simulation: Active.]
He flexed his fingers. His muscles were woven like steel cables. His skin was dense enough to shatter rock. He didn't have a swirling vortex of Qi in his lower abdomen, but the sheer physical pressure his body emitted was indistinguishable from the aura of a 5th Layer Qi Condensation cultivator. In a place called the "Iron Grave," brute force was the Dao.
He released a fraction of his killing intent. The air around him grew heavy, pressing down on the fat merchant.
Luo Yi flinched, sweat pouring down his face. "Y-You... with a cultivation base as solid as yours, Brother, you would walk through the entrance exams! The Iron Grave doesn't care about background. They only care if you can survive the Pit."
Wuxu smiled. It was a terrifying expression.
"Perfect."
He sat down across from Luo Yi, placing the token on his knee.
"We have a lot to discuss, Merchant. And lucky for you..." Wuxu gestured to the dead wolves. "...we have plenty of food while we wait for my house to recharge."