SWDnovel Chapter 1195: Meat Broth
Chapter 1195: Meat Broth
The Elephant Demon kept a deadpan face as he led Ning Fan around the entire training ground for a rough introduction; this too was an order from the All-Knowing Elder.
From his attitude it was clear that if not for the All-Knowing Elder’s command, he simply wouldn’t deign to waste time on Ning Fan; his arrogance was far too great.
It wasn’t only the Elephant Demon who had a condescending sense of superiority toward Ning Fan; the other ancient existences here shared the same attitude. When Ning Fan walked past them, they didn’t even spare him an extra glance.
This was a group of ancient beings used to great figures and grand scenes; some of them had even been brought from the Real Realms to the Dreamland Realm by the All-Knowing Elder and had lived for countless ages. Facing a junior from the end-of-law era like Ning Fan, it was inevitable they would act like old seniors putting on airs.
A堂堂 Eastern Heaven Yama, ignored wherever he went—this was the first time since Ning Fan revealed his full Mana that he had been treated so coldly.
It was only coldness; Ning Fan’s state of mind was far from being disturbed by such a thing. Compared to these ancient beings putting on senior airs, he was far more interested in the training devices here.
In one corner of the training ground, a demon youth was using a giant purple-sand grindstone to crush his Divine Sense again and again; with each shattering and rebirth of his Divine Sense, it would improve by a tiny degree. In another corner, an old mountain Yin Yang Transformation sat cross-legged in a pool of green water, immortal mist coiling around him. With every breath, he seemed able to draw in the power of the pool to strengthen his demon pupils. There was an ancient beast in the shape of a Kylin spouting blazing flames, trying to boil a pot of immortal water that could not be brought to a boil no matter what, yet he was engrossed in it; there was an old Fiendgod dressed like a woodcutter, holding a giant axe and chopping at an osmanthus tree that would never fall, sweating like rain. His sweat was as filthy as mud and carried the stench of dead fish...
At first glance, these people’s cultivation all looked very strange, but with Ning Fan’s eye, the more he watched the more shocked he became—every one of their cultivation methods was terrifying to this extent!
"This person is actually cultivating an Undying Divine Sense art! And he’s already just stepping through the door!"
"The green pool beneath this one isn’t water at all, but soul liquid formed from his self-shattered Demon Soul! As a Yin Yang Evil Vein, he actually abandoned his Demon Soul to retrain demon pupils—after shattering his Demon Soul he can still live!"
"That immortal kettle is strange; it’s not boiling water, it’s actually boiling all the Kylin blood in this beast’s body!"
"This man is only chopping a tree, so how can it actually wash my physique and marrow to such a degree—what principle is this!"
Ning Fan truly felt his horizons being greatly broadened.
"I originally came here with a ’whatever’ attitude, just to glance around, but after seeing these training devices, I’ve changed my mind. If I cultivate using these devices, I might truly gain something; the methods of Senior All-Knowing seem to surpass what I imagined..."
Ning Fan was musing to himself when a cold snort suddenly interrupted him.
"Hmph! The master ordered me to guide your cultivation. Though I’m unwilling, I have no choice but to obey. The training devices here are divided into three grades: primary devices train basics like strength, Mana, speed, and so on; intermediate devices are more detailed—for strength, for example, they subdivide it into punch force, kick force, palm force, grip strength, strength precision, and limit strength; advanced devices train the most profound aspects, still taking strength as an example—advanced devices train the transformations of strength, the traces of strength..."
What the Elephant Demon was best at was his physical strength, so he naturally used the cultivation of strength, which he knew best, as his example.
Ning Fan was quite surprised; he truly hadn’t expected that just cultivating strength here would hold so many subtleties. Ordinary Masters, when cultivating strength, usually only focused on how great their power was, but here the standards seemed much more particular...
"Enough, next, I will guide you in strength cultivation..."
"Wait a moment. I want to ask, is there any training device here that can improve Mana Purity?" As expected, what Ning Fan most wanted to improve right now was still his pitifully low Mana Purity.
"Mana Purity? There is, but..." The Elephant Demon, a perfectly grown man, suddenly flushed scarlet.
The reason was simple: he was a muscle maniac; he only knew how to cultivate strength, and only understood strength.
He wasn’t very adept at cultivating Mana Purity. Generally speaking, normal people simply didn’t need to specially cultivate Mana Purity, okay?
After all, normal people’s cultivation speed was very slow, especially after reaching the Timeless Realm. Every single layer of the realms was incredibly difficult to advance; one could be stuck for hundreds of millions to tens of billions of years. To remain in one realm for so long was more than enough for the Mana of that realm to be fully refined; purity naturally wouldn’t be a problem.
But Ning Fan happened to be one of the extremely rare anomalies between heaven and earth. It would be one thing if his realms merely progressed quickly—at a bone age of only over a hundred thousand, he had already cultivated to the Immortal King Realm, a first-class talent even in the Real Realms. On top of that, due to having four bloodlines, his Mana’s grade far surpassed his own realms—Mana of fourteen thousand eight hundred tribulations was absolutely not a level an Immortal King should possess!
Mana Purity was a problem unique to geniuses; throughout his long life, the Elephant Demon had never experienced such a vexation...
"I know your Mana Purity is poor, but... we’d best still cultivate strength. Mana and such are all illusory; no matter how profound your Mana, once it’s exhausted you’ll be in a predicament. Only strength will never deceive you; only muscles will never fail you. Spilling blood in battle is the proper fighting style for a man. Look at you, thin like a monkey, your strength is pathetically small, weak like a woman..."
The Elephant Demon pushed Ning Fan with a "hate-iron-for-not-becoming-steel" look, as if to prove how weak Ning Fan’s skinny frame was, that a single push would topple him.
Yet with that push, he was shocked!
He had used half his strength, but actually failed to move Ning Fan’s small frame!
Beneath that frail-looking exterior, there actually hid a vast power that caught him completely off guard!
What he didn’t know was that Ning Fan was equally shocked.
How strong his physical defense was had already been proven countless times. Although his physical defense was strong in defense and weak in offense, his strength was definitely not weak either—he could swing the Reverse Sea Sword that weighed eighteen stars; how could his strength be weak!
Yet he had almost had his body shaken by a single push from the Elephant Demon; just how strong was this Elephant Demon!
Moreover, unless Ning Fan had sensed wrongly, the Elephant Demon hadn’t used his full strength at all—he had only used a tiny portion of it... If this person unleashed all his strength, below the Quasi-Saint realm there would be no one who could withstand his terrifying power! Comparing pure strength alone, Ning Fan had to admit that he was a full level inferior to the Elephant Demon!
No wonder this man spoke so arrogantly—so he did have some skill to back it up...
"Hahaha, I misjudged you! I originally thought you were as weak as the others, but I didn’t expect you to be a top expert among Body Cultivation cultivators as well! If I’m not mistaken, in this training ground, aside from me, there is no one who can surpass you in strength. Good, good, good, I’ll guide you in cultivating strength right away..."
Upon realizing that Ning Fan was also a Body Cultivation expert, the Elephant Demon grew excited at the sight of a worthy opponent, and his attitude immediately spun a full one hundred eighty degrees.
He wanted even more to drag Ning Fan into strength training!
In his eyes, Ning Fan’s current strength was acceptable, but there was still quite a gap between them. He wanted to train Ning Fan’s strength to an even more terrifying level, and then... have Ning Fan accompany him in sparring and dueling in body techniques...
But what Ning Fan wanted right now was only to improve his Mana Purity.
Because once his Mana Purity rose, his strength would skyrocket in a leap, and that kind of cultivation gain was something no other project could compare to.
"What a stubborn little fellow... You really want to focus on cultivating Mana Purity? You won’t regret it?"
"It’s just cultivating some Mana Purity, why would I regret it?" Ning Fan was puzzled.
"Because the place where you cultivate Mana Purity isn’t here. Cultivating Mana Purity is too special, it needs to be paired with a special earth‑vein environment. Master did build a special training ground just for Mana Purity, but that place is extremely dangerous... You’re sure you want to go there?"
"I’m sure." Dangerous—how dangerous could it be? Could that place be inside the Light Ancestor Abyss ant nest? Even if it really was that kind of perilous land, as long as it could improve his Mana Purity a bit, Ning Fan would gladly go have a look.
If you don’t enter the tiger’s den, how can you get the tiger’s cub; if it really was dangerous, at worst he’d just come back.
"Then... fine... I’m actually not very good at cultivating Mana Purity, I’ll find someone who specializes in this to go with you, how about that?" The Elephant Demon, a proper big man, flushed red once again.
"No need for a companion. As for Mana Purity, I have some insights of my own. As long as I get there, I can grope my way through cultivation myself."
"That won’t do. Master needs your cultivation data; someone must stay at your side and record every moment of your cultivation... If you don’t let someone accompany you, that will actually make things difficult for me..."
The Elephant Demon’s gaze swept over the entire drill ground, then suddenly lit up.
How did I forget this guy! Isn’t this guy exactly a Mana Purity expert! Her Mana Purity is so high she can literally burn enemies to death!
At that moment, in some corner, a certain Slime Monster who had been plotting how to squeeze Ning Fan out suddenly shivered all over, feeling something bad was about to happen.
"Feng Zhao, you’re going to accompany this little friend down to the Twelfth Layer. He needs to go there to cultivate Mana Purity!" the Elephant Demon said in a tone that allowed no refusal.
"W–what! Go to the Twelfth Layer! This old lady’s not going! Whoever likes going can go!" The Slime Monster’s expression changed drastically, dropping the cutesy soft‑girl act entirely. Over her dead body would she go to the Twelfth Layer of the Abyss; that’s where the Light Ant Clan’s forbidden ground was. Even Quasi‑Saints didn’t dare go there and act wild; she wasn’t even a Quasi‑Saint. She’d have to be crazy to accompany some idiot there to cultivate damn Mana Purity!
"Hmph! Master ordered me to take charge of everything related to this kid’s cultivation, which of course includes arranging a temporary sparring partner for him. This trip, you’re going whether you want to or not. If you don’t go, and Master lays blame, neither of us can bear it!"
"Damn it, you only know how to use Master to pressure me..." The moment she heard Master might be angry, the Slime Monster looked even more terrified, as if the All-Knowing Elder’s wrath was a thousand, ten thousand times more dangerous than the Light Ants’ forbidden land.
Her mood right now felt like she’d just been humped by ten thousand stray dogs!
The Elephant Demon couldn’t care less about the Slime Monster’s feelings. He opened a rarely used, dust‑covered Teleportation Formation and finally sent Ning Fan and the Slime Monster away together.
"Little friend! All of Master’s cultivation equipment has a hundred to a thousand times the cultivation effect. With Feng Zhao guiding you, you’ll definitely finish cultivating your Mana Purity very quickly! Once you’re done and come back, I’ll give you proper guidance on power training. We men should still converse with our muscles; when the time comes, you’re not allowed to run away again!" The Elephant Demon said with eager anticipation.
"..." Ning Fan was slightly speechless; the last thing he wanted was to "converse with muscles" with anyone.
...
After a bout of teleportation, Ning Fan was sent directly from the underground drill ground to the Twelfth Layer of the Light Ancestor Abyss.
As soon as he entered the Twelfth Layer, Ning Fan felt a wave of scorching heat blast against his face, and his expression brightened at once.
The origin fire here is so strong! This was clearly also one of those rarely seen Extreme Fire Lands in the world, and a top‑tier one at that!
The ground was like the surface of the Sun, hot enough to melt Twelve Nirvana Magical Treasures, and there were even insanely pure flames burning flush along the ground. This was not a place ordinary people could even linger in!
After the Slime Monster arrived, her whole Niba body almost got baked dry; the surface cracked and wrinkled. She beckoned with a muddy hand, took out a water bottle gourd, and glug‑glug‑glug chugged water, trying to replenish the moisture her body had lost.
She really, really didn’t want to come to this place!
The environment here, and the hidden dangers here, were both reasons she wanted nothing to do with this place!
She even more didn’t want to accompany Ning Fan here!
Even more didn’t want to guide Ning Fan’s cultivation!
If she guided Ning Fan into becoming stronger, wouldn’t he be even harder to squeeze out! She had no interest in doing something so "help the enemy"!
But she had no way out!
The Elephant Demon had used Master to pressure her; she had no choice but to obey!
"Hey, brat, I’m warning you! Even though the training ground Master secretly opened up in the Twelfth Layer of the Abyss is well hidden, if you make too big a commotion, those slutty bitches from the Light Ant Clan will still sense it. Then you’d better watch out for them swarming over here and dragging you back to get ridden a hundred times, a thousand times..." What was with this 100% female‑devil tone of voice!
"..." The corner of Ning Fan’s mouth twitched.
So this was the Slime Monster’s true nature? She didn’t even want to maintain that soft moe loli persona anymore? She’d completely switched to using a vicious old hag demon tone now?
Ning Fan ignored the Slime Monster and examined the Extreme Fire earth‑vein here, a faint smile on his lips.
Interesting...
He’d previously used the Treasure-searching Compass to search Northern Heaven’s Extreme Fire Lands, among which there were four of the strongest Extreme Fire Lands.
Back then, Ning Fan had only located the exact position of the Black Demon Sect’s Extreme Fire Land; the other three were hidden in secret places.
Right now, this flaming ground beneath his feet seemed to be one of those three Extreme Fire Lands whose locations had been unknown back then.
This really was quite a coincidence.
On this Extreme Fire Land, even without using the All-Knowing Elder’s cultivation equipment, Ning Fan could still use the "Refining Purity Formula" to increase his Mana Purity.
If he were to use the All-Knowing Elder’s cultivation equipment to assist his Refining Purity cultivation, his purification speed might increase by quite a lot...
Only...
"Why is there only a boundless sea of fire here, and no cultivation equipment left by Senior Quanzhi..." Ning Fan asked in puzzlement.
"What a fool. Such a huge piece of cultivation equipment, and you can’t see it! What they call ’a leaf in front of the eyes makes you blind to Mountain Tai’—that’s exactly what’s happening. Brat, fly up into the sky and take another look at this flaming land, see what it looks like!" the Slime Monster sneered.
Hearing that, Ning Fan flickered up into the sky and looked down over the flaming land.
When he saw the full view of this land, he was suddenly shocked. This vast expanse that stretched across several continents was actually shaped like a gigantic heart that had been ripped apart by someone; every fragment of that heart was a fiery continent!
"Master suppressed the Ant Lord for ten cycles of reincarnation and once shattered the Ant Lord’s heart, bringing it into this world. On this flaming land, Master carved formation patterns that ordinary people cannot see. Even those idiots of the Light Ant Clan don’t know there’s a formation array left here by Master. What we need is to rely on this formation to cultivate; we only need to form the hand seals to drive it and we can unleash the power of this array..."
The Slime Monster’s little mud hand suddenly formed a seal, and veins like blood vessels rose all over the land; formation light flickered faintly.
That formation light had been deliberately concealed; if you didn’t look closely, it was hardly noticeable.
Once the formation was activated, a strange fragrance instantly emerged and spread off into the distance.
"What Formation is this?" Ning Fan asked.
"The ’Divine Chef First, I Second Lure and Kill Prey Formation’... The names Master comes up with are all very weird..."
"...I feel the same."
Weird as the name was, the Formation itself was truly extraordinary.
This array could produce a wisp of strange fragrance, a scent that seemed to have a fatal allure to certain specific creatures.
Sure enough, before long there was movement in the distance. A dried corpse that had been dead who knew how many years parted the sea of fire and, obeying its bodily instincts, walked over.
It was the dried corpse of an Ancient Cultivator, its face ferocious, resentment soaring to the heavens. It had died countless years ago, yet still seemed unable to rest in peace...
The corpse’s steps looked extremely slow, but every step it took instantly crossed countless distances—eerily strange.
The corpse’s body had weathered and grown so brittle it could crumble into ashes at any moment, yet it still exuded an aura no weaker than an Eternal Immortal Venerable.
"The Formation set here by Senior Quanzhi can draw the dried corpses of this place over. Could it be there’s something special about these corpses that can increase my Mana Purity?" Ning Fan asked with a note of speculation.
"Hm? Didn’t think this fool still had a few scraps of brains. That’s right, these dried corpses are the Ant Lord’s Corpse Puppets. Anyone killed by the Ant Lord will become like this, never to find release for all eternity... Go kill this corpse. First, you can free this person. Second, you can obtain the Ant Lord’s ant seed from his body. Peel it, boil it till it’s mush, cook it into a soup and drink it—great tonic! You go hunt the corpse, I’ll make the fire and cook!"
The Slime Monster pulled out pots and pans like performing a magic trick, and without even bothering to make a fire, directly borrowed the flames of the land to boil water.
Its expression was sullen and reluctant.
Clearly, deep down, it didn’t want to help Ning Fan cultivate at all, yet had no choice but to comply.
"Corpse Puppet, huh..."
Ning Fan looked at the dried corpse that kept approaching and fell silent for a moment.
Who knew which year or which Immortal Realm this Ancient Cultivator came from; who knew what good or evil deeds he had done in life; who knew whether he still had regrets at the moment of his death. Once dead, a lifetime of bitter cultivation flowed away like water; even in death, he could not rest in peace.
This was the cruelty of the cultivation world. If you did not become strong, not only could you not choose how you died, even resting peacefully after death was a luxury...
"Junior Ning Fan, will send you off with one more death!"
As Ning Fan spoke words the Slime Monster could not understand, he swung the Reverse Sea Sword in a single slash, blasting the dried corpse into a sky full of scattered ash.
"Actually talking to a Corpse Puppet that doesn’t even have the slightest bit of spirit awareness, what a fool..." The Slime Monster happily kept the water boiling, taking Ning Fan’s behavior as nothing more than a bout of madness.
Ning Fan did not need the Slime Monster to understand him. The thoughts he held, everything he did, was never for anyone’s understanding.
The dried corpse’s flesh turned to ash, yet there was one thing inside it that had not been destroyed, and Ning Fan seized it.
It was a flesh bead the size of a chicken egg!
On the flesh bead grew dozens of silk-like fine tendrils, each three feet long. When this flesh bead parasitized a dried corpse, it could use those tendrils to control the corpse’s flesh body...
This was the ant seed the Ant Lord had left inside each dried corpse.
This disgusting thing, once ingested, was a great tonic—so potent it could increase Mana Purity.
Ning Fan handed the ant seed to the Slime Monster, and the Slime Monster immediately started cheerfully cooking this "delicacy" of ant seed for him.
Smelling the gradually spreading rank, fishy stench from the meat soup in the pot, Ning Fan felt a wave of nausea. A flesh bead that had been parasitizing a dried corpse for countless years—soup cooked from this thing, can it really... be drunk...
Kind of disgusting...
But if it really can boost my Mana Purity, then being a bit gross is just something I’ll have to live with...
In the end, Ning Fan almost puked as he finished off half a pot of meat broth. His Mana Purity really did improve quite a bit, so at least he hadn’t been grossed out for nothing.
The Slime Monster’s grin was so wide her mouth went crooked. Maybe she’d been unwilling to come accompany Ning Fan to cultivate, but the moment she saw the look of suffering on his face, she felt a rush of joy; all forty‑eight thousand Niba pores all over her body loosened up, as if she was bathing in a spring breeze!
"Miss, wanna have a taste too? You worked so hard to cook this broth, I can’t just hog it all by myself." There was still half a pot left. Ning Fan had originally planned to finish it all, but suddenly felt it would be a bit wrong not to leave any for the Slime Monster, so he opened his mouth to ask.
"No no, you go ahead and drink every last drop. And that lump of meatball, you have to eat that too, not a single drop of juice left. Hey, why are you gagging it back up? Even if this meatball tastes like a pile of shit, you can’t waste food. Come, come, let this young lady feed you. Open your mouth, ah..."
In the end, the whole pot of broth went into Ning Fan’s stomach. Even that meatball that tasted like crap was forcibly stuffed into Ning Fan’s belly by the Slime Monster.
When Light Ants are boiled into soup, the ants themselves are not meant to be eaten, because the taste is just too刺激... The Slime Monster was obviously doing this on purpose to screw with Ning Fan. The more Ning Fan suffered, the happier she became.
Ning Fan could see through some of the little schemes in the Slime Monster’s mind, but he couldn’t be bothered to argue with her. The ant strain was indeed nasty, but he’d eaten things far worse than this.
Besides, once these ants were cooked into meatballs, the medicinal effect was much stronger than the plain broth alone. Eating the ant strain could greatly improve his Mana Purity, so why not?
As for the Slime Monster’s little smugness...
Didn’t this whole body roasted dry Slime Monster... look kind of cute...
Ning Fan appreciated the Slime Monster with the gaze one uses on a pet. He’d taken in many pets in his life—there was Diao’er, the black cat, the sparrow, the turtle, the Heavenly Dog, the pig... He was ice‑cold when killing, but maybe even he himself hadn’t noticed that he had a certain level of tolerance for weird‑looking creatures...
Under Ning Fan’s burning gaze, the Slime Monster suddenly felt completely off.
She got a bit nervous!
She felt like her beauty was being lusted after by Ning Fan!
This was bad, very bad!
She had already turned into mud, hiding her human body; how was there still someone coveting her beauty!
She’d already become a pile of mud, and men in this world still wouldn’t let her go!
Why are there such terrifying men in this world that can get hard even for mud!
"I–I’m warning you! If you dare lay a hand on me, I’ll die right in front of you!" What the hell kind of threat was that! Absolutely brain‑killing!
Ning Fan laughed again, finding it even more delightful to adopt this Slime Monster as a pet. She’d be perfect for killing boredom when he had nothing to do.
He pondered that if he made a deal with the All-Knowing Elder and let the old man experiment on him a few more times, the All-Knowing Elder should be more than happy to sell this Slime Monster to him...
But then his smile faded.
Because more corpse puppets were being drawn over by the Formation!
What kind of encounter was it to be surrounded by sixty to seventy corpse puppets with the power of Eternal Immortal Venerables!
The Slime Monster only felt her scalp go numb. All her methods only worked on living beings; they dealt almost no damage to dead things. If it were just her alone facing so many Immortal Venerable corpse puppets, she’d be dead for sure.
She almost wanted to ditch Ning Fan and run off by herself.
But she was afraid the All-Knowing Elder would blame her afterward!
"Run! Let’s run together! So many corpse puppets are not something you can handle... Y‑y‑you, are you insane!"
The Slime Monster’s expression changed drastically.
In her shocked gaze, Ning Fan flew straight toward the horde of corpse puppets.
Even if there really were sixty to seventy Eternal Immortal Venerables, Ning Fan still wouldn’t be afraid. Back then, he’d fought the Boundary River alone and challenged the Dark Clan; what kind of scene had he not experienced?
Besides, these corpse puppets had only the strength of Immortal Venerables, but none of their spirit awareness or Spells. Their corpses were fragile to the extreme, shattering with a single blow.
Corpse puppets like these, even if there were sixty to seventy of them, Ning Fan didn’t find hard to deal with.
The Reverse Sea Sword swung again and again, and one ancient corpse puppet after another was buried as flying ash by Ning Fan, finally finding rest.
And Ning Fan easily obtained a huge amount of ant strain.
"Keep going, make more broth!"
When Ning Fan dumped a big pile of ant strain in front of the Slime Monster, she couldn’t help but swallow hard.
Holy crap, this idiot was actually that strong! With this idiot by her side as a bodyguard, she basically didn’t have to worry about safety at all on this Twelfth Layer!
If that’s the case... maybe she could use this idiot to do this and that...