Tongzhi County.
An elegant courtyard.
Luminous pearls emitted a soft glow, illuminating the room brightly.
The young man in brocade with a fair face was looking at the leaf-patterned cards in his hand with infatuation, a smile on his face, his gaze sweeping over the other three people at the square table.
It seemed the cards in his hand were very good, causing the smile on his face, after losing for almost the entire night, to carry a hint of fierceness.
"A hundred thousand strings of cash, my apologies everyone."
Just then, a red-faced man opposite him suddenly laid out his bamboo cards, looking at everyone with a half-smile.
"You..."
The smile on the young man's face in brocade with a fair face instantly froze, his hand gripping the bamboo cards tightly, making a clicking sound.
"Thank you for the game, gentlemen."
The red-eyed man, seeing that the three people beside him made no move, then scooped up the thick stack of paper money piled on the table and tucked it into his embrace.
The servants waiting by the table tidied up the scattered bamboo cards, but the young man in brocade with a fair face was not seen placing more chips.
The red-faced man seemed to notice something and spoke with a smile.
"Guo Second Young Master, your luck tonight seems a bit poor. I see your chips are gone. How about coming back tomorrow?"
"Hmph, consider yourselves lucky today. Next time, this Gongzi will win so much you won't know day from night..."
The man in brocade's face flickered with anger. He directly swept away the cards that had just been arranged, then flicked his long sleeves before getting up and leaving.
However, suppressed jeers came from behind him, making his heart feel like it was on fire.
Striding away from this Tianyuan gambling house, he took his attendants and headed straight for the Herbal Hall on the street.
Yang Fu, the manager of the Herbal Hall, was already waiting at the entrance with a smiling face to welcome him.
In the room, the man in brocade gulped down the fragrant tea in the teacup, rinsed his mouth, and spat it out forcefully, then turned his gaze to Yang Fu who was standing nearby.
"How is it? Where's the money? Fatty Yang."
Hearing this, Yang Fu immediately stepped forward and said.
"Second Gongzi, I have already had Ba Long take action. We have succeeded, and I have already sent someone to retrieve the Gongzi's share of the money. I estimate it should be around two to three thousand taels of silver."
Hearing this, a smile finally appeared on the face of Guo Second Young Master.
"Very good, well done, Yang Fu. I will help you with that piece of land you are interested in."
"Thank you, Gongzi, thank you, Gongzi..."
Yang Fu's face showed surprise and delight.
He knew that the young man in front of him was a complete good-for-nothing dandy, but his background was significant. Building a relationship with him would bring great convenience, which was also the reason why his Herbal Hall had developed rapidly in the County Town in recent years.
Just like this time, the land he was interested in had been in competition with another opponent, who also had a background. However, the Governor was the top person in Tongzhi County. As long as the Governor nodded, that piece of land would naturally be his.
Just then, two servants ran over in a hurry.
After seeing the two people in the room, they stopped short, hesitation appearing on their faces.
Seeing this, Yang Fu frowned and said.
"Speak, what happened? Don't just stand there."
"Reporting, Manager, we went to the mountain stronghold outside the city, there... there..."
"What about there? Stop stuttering, you idiot!!"
Seeing their reaction, a bad premonition arose in Yang Fu's heart, and he asked sharply.
"The mountain stronghold... the mountain stronghold is full of corpses, not a single living person..."
"What!?"
Hearing this, Yang Fu's expression froze, and Guo Second Young Master, who was beside him, also frowned, a hint of shock in his eyes.
At the same time, in the bandit camp on the low mountain.
Two figures stood within the camp, looking at the scene of devastation before them.
They began to move through the camp repeatedly, until they saw Ba Long's corpse, then looked at the now empty dungeon, and then disappeared from the camp without looking back.
County Town.
In the pavilions and towers adorned with carved dragons and painted phoenixes.
A man with a fair and refined face, possessing a scholarly demeanor, was standing on the terrace.
His gaze fell upon the pond below. He reached out and scattered a handful of fish food, immediately causing the carp of various colors in the pond to swarm and scramble for it.
At a rough glance, there were at least several hundred carp in the pond.
The tiny bit of fish food was quickly snatched up.
However, the carp did not stop moving. Those that didn't get the fish food actually lunged directly at their neighbors and began to bite them frantically.
Before long, the originally clear pond was dyed red by blood, becoming like bloody water.
This, in turn, further stimulated the carp in the pond, making them even more frantically kill each other.
Within a short time, less than 1/10 of the dense crowd of carp in the pond remained.
Looking at this scene, a hint of a smile finally appeared on the face of the scholarly-looking man.
"Survival of the fittest, natural selection. To become stronger, this is the only way..."
Muttering to himself, he didn't even look at the carp in the pond and turned back into the hall.
At this moment, two more figures had appeared in the hall.
"How is it? Why did you suddenly come here?"
The scholarly man glanced at the two of them, sat directly in the main seat, and spoke indifferently.
"Eldest Gongzi, there have been some issues with Ba Long's side. The entire camp was basically wiped out, and the living people imprisoned in the dungeon are also gone, their whereabouts unknown..."
One of the two figures cupped his hands in a salute and said in a deep voice.
"Hmm!?"
The scholarly man's expression froze, and his face immediately turned cold.
"What happened? I need these living people in seven days. How could there be a problem at this time? Do you know who did it!?"
"This... there is no news yet, but your subordinate has already sent people to investigate. I believe there will be progress soon."
The two figures below the hall replied respectfully.
Hearing this, the scholarly man, or rather, Guo Feng, the eldest son of the Tongzhi County Governor, had cold eyes.
"Whoever dared to ruin my plans, find them and bring them here. I will personally deal with them. Also, within 7 days, make up the number of living people that are missing."
"Your subordinates understand."
The two figures immediately responded, bowed, and then quickly excused themselves and left.
After watching the two of them leave, Guo Feng's expression was gloomy.
He reached out and lightly pressed beneath his seat. Following a series of faint mechanical friction sounds, a narrow passage appeared behind him.
With a light clap of his hands, the narrow and dark passage lit up with a faint glow.
Guo Feng stepped inside. Soon, the passage became wider than this. It was a quite spacious underground area. The ceiling above was inlaid with luminous pearls the size of a baby's fist, illuminating the entire space as if it were daytime.
In the center of the space, there was a deep pit.
Around the pit were deep patterns, and streams of bright red blood were slowly flowing along these patterns towards the pit.
Guo Feng walked all the way to the edge of the pit before stopping.
At this moment, the object within the pit finally came into view.
This was a giant bloody egg, more than one person tall.
Saying it was an egg didn't seem accurate; it looked more like a pulsating oval heart.
It was covered in thick, dark brown blood vessels as thick as fingers, outlining complex patterns on its surface.
Gurgle...
Occasionally, strange sounds came from within this bloody flesh-egg, just like a large stone falling into a deep pool.
With each tremor of the bloody flesh-egg, the surface of the flesh-egg, or rather the flesh-ovum, would bulge outwards in a large lump, and then slowly retract, pulsating elsewhere.
Looking at this eerie and grotesque flesh-ovum, Guo Feng's face showed not the slightest hint of disgust or fear, but rather a morbid obsession. What lay before him was not an ugly softness, but seemed like his most beloved beauty.
Finally, he extended his left hand, hidden beneath his large sleeve, and gently placed it on the surface of the flesh-ovum. His left hand was clearly different from a normal person's palm.
The skin and flesh, which should have been young and full, now looked withered and shriveled like the palm of a seventy or eighty-year-old person. Even the skin showed a deep brown color different from the rest of his body.
The moment his palm came into contact with this flesh-ovum, the flesh-ovum immediately sensed it.
With a squelching sound, the flesh-ovum under the skin where the two made contact split open, and a fleshy barb emerged from it, directly piercing into Guo Feng's palm.
Guo Feng's face showed pain, but he did not withdraw his hand, instead allowing it to frantically absorb his blood.
Only after the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, when his face became increasingly pale, did he withdraw his hand.
And the fleshy barb extended by the bloody flesh-ovum quickly retracted back inside and disappeared.
"My darling, just wait, it won't be long before we can meet..."
Only the infatuated murmurs echoed in the underground space.
...
Tongzhi County, in the residence.
After giving the city guards more than ten taels of silver, Lin Sheng smoothly got the carriage exempted from inspection and entered the city, returning all the way to his residence.
He told Wang Dehai to find a room for himself and then quickly went to sleep.
That night, nearly a hundred bandits died by his hand.
Among them were not a few experts in the Body Tempering and Forging Tendons Realms, so even he was somewhat tired at this moment.
The night quickly passed.
The next day, the sky brightened.
On the long street, inside a pharmacy.
Lin Sheng came out carrying several leather bags.
The leather bags naturally contained the blood of high-level common beasts.
Now, he was only a step away from completely activating the second mark.
Fortunately, he decided to do it in one go and activate it directly now.
He didn't stop, and returned directly to his residence with the beast blood.
Impatiently, he opened the leather bags and reached his hand inside.
As his thoughts flickered, the blood in the leather bags was completely absorbed by him, and at this moment, the second circular mark on his chest finally became completely rounded, forming a perfect circle.
"Phew... It's finally done. Let me see what changes the activation of the second mark can bring."
Lin Sheng's consciousness sank and entered the void space.
At this moment, the void space had undergone great changes compared to its previous calmness. Thick blood mist constantly churned and surged, as if it had completely fallen into a frenzy.
Within the blood mist, there was a monkey outlined by bloody patterns, suspended above the blood mist, lifelike and seemingly alive.
And beside this monkey, a mass of thick blood mist was slowly drifting.
Seeing this scene, Lin Sheng's mind stirred. The next moment, this mass of dark mist rapidly changed and gathered, forming another lifelike monkey-like beast. However, it was significantly smaller than the monkey beside it.
"As expected, I can indeed absorb two different beasts simultaneously."
A smile appeared on Lin Sheng's face. The amplification effect brought by absorbing two different beasts simultaneously would undoubtedly be even stronger.
Moreover, the blood mist in the void space at this moment was clearly much more abundant than before.
Regarding the formation of the blood mist, he also understood in his heart that its principle was related to the number and types of beasts he absorbed and the amount of blood.
He spent the entire morning studying the changes after activating the second mark and the combined effects of the two marks.
"Unfortunately, the stacking of amplified attributes is not a simple 1+1 calculation..."
Regarding the combined effects of the two marks, he had some guesses in his heart before activating the second mark.
The simplest was naturally 1+1.
A simple example would be simultaneously absorbing two agility-type beasts, the Black Tiger Ape and the White Ape.
One has an agility amplification of 3, and the other has an agility amplification of 2. If calculated as 1+1, it would naturally be 3+2, resulting in an agility amplification of 5.
However, now that the second mark was truly activated, the stacking between the two was not that simple. After stacking the Black Tiger Ape and White Ape together, he could indeed feel a significant improvement compared to simply absorbing the Black Tiger Ape, but it was still far from reaching an agility amplification of 5.
According to his mental estimation, it was only around an agility amplification of 4.
However, upon careful consideration, this situation was the most reasonable. After all, the higher the amplification of absorbed attributes, the stronger the effect of the amplification. In this regard, it had a similar effect to martial arts Realms.
Take the simplest strength amplification as an example: a strength amplification of 1 might be around five hundred catties, a strength amplification of 2 would be around twelve to thirteen hundred catties, while the effect of a strength amplification of 3 directly boosted strength to around two thousand five hundred catties.
The approximate ratio is that each point of amplification increases by about twice the amount of the previous point.
You must know that even after absorbing a Spirit Beast of the Silver-patterned Black Crocodile level, the strength amplification is only three points, which is only one point more than the Tusker Mountain Pig.
However, the gap between the two can be said to be worlds apart. How could it be so easily bridged?
However, even so, the activation of the second mark was a huge boost to his strength.
Since the second mark can be activated, it may not be impossible to activate the third, or even the fourth... fourth, or even the fifth mark in the future.
He can fully utilize the specialties of the absorbed beast types and make reasonable combinations to maximize their advantages.
He continued to explore and experiment until afternoon before Lin Sheng finally stopped.
After eating lunch with Lin Hong and Xie Guilan, he went to take a look at Xiao Shi. At this time, Xiao Shi had woken up from his coma, and his injuries had stabilized, but it would take at least 10 to 15 days to fully recover.
"Lin Tou."
Seeing Lin Sheng, Xiao Shi wanted to get up from the bed, but was immediately pressed back down.
"Just rest honestly and recover from your injuries first."
Lin Sheng said with a serious expression.
Only then did Xiao Shi lie back down, but his face was still full of guilt and remorse.
"It's my fault for being useless. If I hadn't easily trusted those two bastards, this wouldn't have happened."
"Alright, this wasn't your fault. Just focus on recovering from your injuries."
Lin Sheng smiled and shook his head, but he didn't have any intention of blaming him.
Since he had already been targeted, trouble would come sooner or later. Even if this incident with Xiao Shi hadn't happened, something else would have. Solving it now just saved him future trouble.