Chapter 58: Taking The Realm For Now

“Do you know that you are affecting the progress of a secret realm?

“If this prevents it from becoming a fine secret realm praised by cultivators everywhere, can you bear that responsibility?”

The pale red shadow ignored the words rapidly appearing on the Little Paper Man and kept struggling in its hand.

Only then did Lu Yuan clearly see the pale red shadow’s form.

The shadow firmly held by the Little Paper Man slowly revealed its true shape.

It was like a lump of jelly constantly changing in shape and size, trying to squeeze itself out in every direction. Yet it had never expected that the Little Paper Man’s seemingly frail little hand would grip it so tightly that it had no way out at all.

After struggling for a long time and seeing no effect, the pale red jelly-like thing immediately grew furious. Dark red light flickered across its body, and one stone person and stone beast after another stood up and surrounded the Little Paper Man.

The eyeball tattoo on the Little Paper Man’s arm quickly bulged outward, staring fixedly at the approaching stone people and stone beasts.

Soon, cracks suddenly split open across various parts of the many stone people and stone beasts. One huge scarlet eyeball after another burrowed out from the openings, dragging out great masses of red and white matter.

With a little distinction, one could tell that they were the flesh-and-blood essence of cultivators and demonic beasts from various body parts. Perhaps because they had been sealed inside stone for too long, the surroundings were filled with a decayed stench.

The stone people and stone beasts whose internal flesh-and-blood essence had been taken away each turned into piles of stones, heaped on the ground, with no sign of life left.

After Lu Yuan controlled the Illusory Yin Eye to dispose of those stone people and stone beasts, the captured pale red shadow soon accepted the fact that it had been caught.

It allowed the paper strips extended by the Little Paper Man to bind it and lay weakly on the ground.

Lu Yuan then controlled the Little Paper Man to arrive before that stone trough, looking at the dark red liquid inside it.

From the previous exchange between the three cultivators, along with the gestures the pale red shadow had just made, Lu Yuan learned that the crimson liquid before him was called stone marrow, and the pale red shadow was the Stone Marrow Spirit born by chance inside the stone mountain.

Dragging the long paper strips, the Little Paper Man took a jade box and a large leaf from its back, scooped up the stone marrow in the stone trough, and carefully dripped it into the jade box.

From some collection of miscellaneous notes left by previous cultivators, he had learned that the conditions required for stone marrow to form were extremely difficult, and its uses were wide-ranging. It could be used for pill refinement and artifact refinement, and could even be consumed directly to improve cultivation.

The Stone Marrow Spirit on the ground had originally calmed down quite a bit, but when it saw the Little Paper Man continuously collecting the stone marrow into the jade box, boundless fury surged up in its heart once more.

Stone marrow did not grow easily. A single drop might require several days to form. The stone marrow inside this stone trough was something it had spent many years gathering.

But now it was tightly bound by the paper strips, stripped of its freedom, and unable to protect the stone marrow it had so painstakingly saved up inside the stone trough.

The Stone Marrow Spirit lay powerless on the ground, watching the Little Paper Man leisurely collect the dark red stone marrow.

Lu Yuan looked at the stone marrow in his hand, then looked at the Stone Marrow Spirit lying on the ground, and felt an intense sense of déjà vu.

At home, the head of the household was tied up by a villain who had broken into the house and tossed into a corner. Then the villain stretched his sinful claws toward the household head’s beloved treasure.

Though the head of the household was unwilling in every possible way, he had no means to save his beloved treasure. He could only watch helplessly, lying powerless on the ground as the fury in his heart grew and grew. Fury turned into despair, and in the end, he had no choice but to accept reality.

Why did this plot feel so familiar?

Lu Yuan silently grumbled about this oddly familiar plot. Looking at the listless Stone Marrow Spirit on the ground, whose eyes had lost their light, a thought suddenly popped into his mind.

“Hey, whatever-you-are Stone Marrow Spirit, you don’t want all the stone marrow you’ve saved up for so many years to be taken away by me just like this, do you?”

Black words quickly appeared one after another on the Little Paper Man’s body.

When the Stone Marrow Spirit saw what was written on the Paper Figure’s body, light returned to its eyes. It stared straight at the Little Paper Man and nodded heavily.

“It’s very simple if you want to get this stone marrow back. Come with me to a secret realm. Once we’re there, I’ll naturally return some of the stone marrow to you.”

The Little Paper Man wrote rapidly while pointing at the dark red liquid inside the stone trough.

“Don’t worry. The secret realm I’m taking you to isn’t dangerous, and its spirit energy is pure and dense. It’s far better than this stone mountain of yours, by who knows how much.”

Seeing doubt in the Stone Marrow Spirit’s eyes, the Little Paper Man hurriedly wrote an explanation on its body.

From the gestures earlier, he had learned that aside from strangely refining cultivators into stone people and stone beasts, the Stone Marrow Spirit had two other functions.

The first was that it could produce stone marrow. The speed at which it produced stone marrow was closely related to the secret realm’s stone quality, the density of the secret realm’s spirit energy, and so on.

The second was that it could control the surrounding stone and soil, altering the terrain and landscape around itself.

These two functions were perfect for constructing his own cave abode.

The Stone Marrow Spirit looked at the hollow-eyed Little Paper Man, unable to know what it was thinking. Perhaps it was tempted by the dense and pure spirit energy, or perhaps it feared being silenced by the other party if it refused.

It did not hesitate much and nodded, agreeing to Lu Yuan’s proposal.

Joy rose in Lu Yuan’s heart.

“This once again proves that I am a conscientious cave abode. Seeing this Stone Marrow Spirit living in a place where not even birds would lay eggs, my sympathy overflowed, and I offered it a better secret realm residence.”

However, thinking back to what he had seen and heard after entering the secret realm, he felt that although this Stone Marrow Spirit had the word stone in its name and had been born in a stone mountain, it did not have the steady feeling that stone brought. On the contrary, he could sense its treachery and cunning.

He planned to give the Stone Marrow Spirit a warning in advance, lest it stir up trouble inside his cave abode in the future.

“I’ll make this clear beforehand. After entering my secret realm, you have to work properly and obey my orders. Otherwise, it’s hard to say what consequences might arise.”

“I could easily take hold of you even on your home ground. Once you reach my secret realm, you’ll have even less say in things.”

The hundreds or even thousands of stone people and stone beasts inside the stone mountain, as well as the Stone Marrow Spirit’s sudden ambush when the three cultivators were collecting the stone marrow, made Lu Yuan unable to help suspecting that all of this had been directed and acted out by the Stone Marrow Spirit itself.

It had spread the news that there was stone marrow inside the stone mountain, used that dark red fist-sized stone as a key, and selected the cultivators who entered. It allowed solo cultivators or groups of cultivators whose strength was below its own to enter the stone mountain, then turned them into stone people and stone beasts for it to command, causing its own power to continuously grow.

This also forced Lu Yuan to be a little more cautious. If it still behaved like this after entering his secret realm, wouldn’t that affect his fine reputation as a good secret realm?

The Stone Marrow Spirit nodded in agreement. Lu Yuan ordered the Little Paper Man to loosen the paper strips, and the Stone Marrow Spirit immediately melted into a puddle of jelly, slowly shifting over in front of the Little Paper Man.

Lu Yuan calculated in his heart what he had gained from subduing the Stone Marrow Spirit this time.

There was a large quantity of precious stone marrow, the Stone Marrow Spirit that could help construct his cave abode and produce stone marrow, and after it entered the cave abode for the first time, he could probably also earn a light orb reward brought by the Stone Marrow Spirit.

He had not won all that much.

Just a tiny bit.

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