Bian's eyes twitched a bit when he got his vision back. The Purple Mantis King wasn't weak, but Bian was a perfect counter for it.
He had armor which made its sharp blade meaningless, and he could perceive the world even without his vision with the Dongxuan and Emperical Aura.
He unsummoned the Solum Mirror ahead of time to prevent it from absorbing the beast soul. He still needed a variety of those at the moment.
[Beast Soul of Mutant Creature Purple Mantis King: Weapon]
Bian summoned the beast soul of the Purple Mantis King, which was a sharp serrated saber. Needless to say, it was purple in colour.
The Edge of Ruin was a top-tier gold geno core, but Bian would soon outgrow it once he started battling sacred and super opponents.
He looked at the large body of the Purple Mantis King and summoned the Bronze Cauldron.
Looking inside, the life essence of the Black Mountain God was almost completely spherical with only some bumps left.
Bian couldn't remove an item from the Bronze Cauldron once it started refining it. He had stayed in the alliance for almost two months, and yet it still looked like it would take a day for the life essence to be fully refined.
He looked at the collapsed entrance of the tunnel, which was destroyed by the attack of the Purple Mantis King.
Luckily, Bian had Terraslip to enter the tunnels whenever he wanted to. He decided to explore after he dealt with the body of the Purple Mantis King.
With the Emperical Aura, he could already see quite far, but he was still the focal point of the light. It would move alongside him, reducing the dangers of exploration to almost nil.
Bian sat on the ground and entered a meditative state. He really needed to rest because of the Emperical Decree, plus not much could harm him since he had the Silver-Plated Armor on anyway.
Not to mention that with the Emperical Aura, nothing could get close without him knowing firsthand.
Although keeping the Aura active while resting would reduce his efficiency greatly, it was exactly what Bian needed to pass the time.
...
After a full day had passed, Bian had mostly recovered the energy expended, and right at this moment, the Bronze Cauldron stopped producing the swirling currents.
"I am never putting a life essence in there again until I raise its rank to at least Gemstone."
Bian really couldn't be waiting two months just to refine one life essence. Although it was incredible that a bronze geno core could refine a life essence in the first place.
Bian knew how much trouble Han Sen faced absorbing the strange life essences of the Fourth Sanctuary beasts.
He placed the crystal ball the size of a cherry into his mouth, and a cool liquid spread from the life essence.
[Life Essence of Black Mountain God Consumed. One Super Geno Point gained.]
Bian felt his cells cheering in excitement as the cool liquid spread to every corner of his body.
He swallowed the life essence, and the energy flowed out from his stomach like a river, nourishing all the cells and tissues of his body.
His muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments underwent a baptism and erupted with newfound strength.
Bian let out a breath of fresh air and hopped to his feet. He felt really good and wasted no time forcing the Purple Mantis King into the cauldron.
He had to cut it into pieces, and even then, he still had half of its body left over, which he put on his summoned mount, the Alabaster Tiger.
The Purple Mantis King didn't actually have much meat, but Bian planned on putting each and every part of its body into the cauldron.
Only by doing this could he get the full geno points from its body.
He unsummoned the Bronze Cauldron and walked ahead alongside the Alabaster Tiger.
The other mantises in the field had tried to disturb Bian several times while he was meditating; however, the Solum Mirror was there to thwart their plans.
Even as he passed now, the mirror protected him from the continuous harassment of these creatures.
'Wouldn't I gain both souls for the Solum Mirror and enough flesh to fill my mutant and sacred geno points if I hunted these mantises?'
Bian entertained the thought for a little while before shaking his head. Fusing two mutant pills had caused him to lose consciousness once before.
It was definitely more costly than fusing two live mutant creatures and then refining their corpses.
The main reason he wouldn't do this was the time it would take. Be it to recharge after using the Emperical Decree or waiting for the Bronze Cauldron to refine their flesh.
Also consuming the same creatures gave diminishing returns and would eventually stop providing him with geno points.
"They aren't running away anyway. I might as well try to level up the Cauldron to speed up its efficiency."
With this thought in mind, Bian chose no particular direction and began moving forward.
He had only walked for half a day when he observed the end of the purple meadow.
There seemed to be a chain of mountain walls ahead. As Bian got closer to the mountains, more of the Emperical Aura was able to spread.
He observed the mountains were very tall, so much so that he still couldn't see their peaks even with the Emperical Aura.
As he approached even closer, though, he was able to find a valley between the mountain plains.
There were rocks and boulders sprawled about, and to his surprise, some of those rocks had a life force.
Bian soon reached the valley filled with those weird rocks that had life. As he approached one, the rock started shaking.
The normal stones and dust rolled together with the live rock, lifting the entire thing off the ground and assembling into a five-meter stone golem.
The golem roared at Bian and charged towards him.
"It's just a primitive creature." Bian brought out the Edge of Ruin and used a sword beam to decapitate the golem.
That strike did little to impede its momentum, and the golem continued charging at Bian.
All the rocks making up the golem's body were identical in look, but Bian was able to espy the one which had a life force.
He dodged the slam attack of the golem and thrust forward with the dark blade, piercing the stone golem's chest where its heart would have been.
When that special rock was destroyed, a mist left it and dispersed.
Bian didn't even get an announcement from the kill.
He frowned slightly and kept walking into the valley. Three more golems formed out of the ground and charged at Bian.
Bian recalled the Emperical Aura and used the Dongxuan Aura to find and strike all three of the golems' cores with one sword strike.
Without the Emperical Aura to intervene, three misty forces left the golems and drifted inwards. They were absorbed by one stone, which vibrated intensely, causing a small earthquake.
Several more rocks rolled down the mountain peaks and assembled with this new core, forming a two-headed golem monster.
Bian looked past it at the trail littered with rocks and knew this valley was filled to the brim with these things.
When they died, their powers would be absorbed by others, and although this Golem's life force remained the same, it's strength was already that of a berserk primitive creature.
If this continued, wouldn't they reach the super level?
Bian summoned the Solum Mirror and, using the Dongxuan Aura, found not one, but four cores inside this golem.
"It seems all these rocks really are normal, but that force brings them to life."
The golem roared with both mouths and formed a giant stone hammer out of the ground.
This two-headed golem was already eight meters tall, but its hammer was actually ten meters long, with the head as big as a car. It was quite exaggerated.
Bian wondered if the Purple Mantis King could defeat this golem in a direct confrontation of strength.
Roar!
The two-headed golem charged at Bian like a truck, raising up its menacing hammer.
Four sword beams flew out, arriving in front of the golem in an instant.
The golem was quite slow when it came to traversing, but its body movement was absurdly fast.
It blocked the four strikes with the hammer.
Unfortunately, these strikes were like high-pressured water through cotton candy. The golem couldn't even resist before it was chopped into pieces.
The Solum Mirror flew in front of those pieces and sucked up the four misty forces that were about to escape.
[Silver Solum Mirror]
[Retaliation: 300/300]
[Soul Capacity: 18/300]
"The counter should have increased to twenty-two, but it stopped at eighteen instead. Something really is wrong with these golems."
Bian had some chance to stuff the rest of the Purple Mantis King into the Bronze Cauldron. Then he rode on the Alabaster Tiger as he moved forward.
More and more golems popped up, but they could only become fuel for the Solum Mirror.
Bian had only travelled five hundred meters into the canyon, but the soul capacity of the mirror had already exceeded two hundred even with the reduced amount he was collecting.
This valley would have truly been frightening if he did not possess the power to absorb the essence of those golem cores. By now, he might have been facing sacred-blood-level golems already.
"Stop!"
Bian suddenly commanded the Alabaster Tiger to hold still. Up ahead, the ground wasn't littered with rocks anymore; it was quite literally made of small and large pieces.
The canyon, which was narrow at the beginning with a length of only twenty meters, had been expanding slowly, but now it suddenly spread to be more than a thousand meters apart.
Lastly, Bian didn't sense any life force from the rocks again. Only those boulders that were as big as barrels had a strong life force equalling those of mutant creatures.
"No matter how I see it, this is a boss arena, right?"