10x Rewards: Novel's Extra's Cultivation Stealing System

[Ding!]

[New Quest Triggered: The Surviving Fodder.]

[Current Status: Apart from Host and Gu Chen, exactly 14 Gu Clan disciples currently remain alive inside the Earth-Grade Slaughter Array.]

[Objective: Ensure that exactly at least 12 of these specific disciples successfully survive the array.]

[Reward:]

[One Earth-Grade Spirit Vein Fragment: A rare cultivation treasure capable of nourishing a sect’s spiritual energy and accelerating cultivation.]

[Three Hundred-Year Blood Jade Ginseng: A precious healing herb that restores vitality, replenishes blood essence, and strengthens the body.]

[One Ancient Beast Blood Essence: A condensed drop of primordial beast blood that can temper the physique and enhance bloodline power.]

[Failure: A deeply unpleasant Surprise Penalty.]

Gu Fan raised his eyebrow as his lips curled up in an amused smirk as he read the glowing blue text.

"You are keeping way too many surprises for me lately, System," Gu Fan casually teased in his mind.

[....]

The system panel instantly flickered like an annoyed static buzz, remaining completely at a loss for words as it chose to shut off instead off engaging in a to and fro with Gu fan.

"Hehehe!" Gu Fan clicked his tongue, "This System truly knows how to ruin a pleasant afternoon."

Gu Fan slowly stood up as he held the sword in his hand.

"Fine." Gu Fan sighed, "I suppose I will save a few idiots."

With an Earth-Grade Spirit Vein Fragment, a Three Hundred-Year Blood Jade Ginseng, and Ancient Beast Blood Essence hanging before him, Gu Fan immediately abandoned his injured act, and the laziness vanished from his face.

"An Earth-Grade Slaughter Array..." Gu Fan muttered softly as his gaze swept along the barrier, and purple light suddenly flashed within his pupils.

[Void-Shattering Eyes Activated.]

And suddenly his green irises turned deep violet and ancient runes flickered within them.

The crimson fog before him gradually became transparent.

The blood-red barrier began to clear as he looked at the twisted runes beneath the mud as streams of corrupted energy flowed through the ground, and everything was exposed before his eyes.

Now since he had never actually written this scene in his original novel thanks to his actions that the storyline had completely derailed, Gu Fan didn’t had his omniscient author’s knowledge about this specific trap.

But his fundamentals were quite clear.

Every single one these arrays worked on the same principle; A massive power source to draw its energy from.

Without one, even a Heaven-Grade formation was nothing more than a beautiful pattern drawn in the dirt.

At first, Gu Fan searched for Spirit Crystals.

Most Earth-Grade killing formations required hundreds, sometimes thousands, of high-grade Spirit Crystals buried beneath the earth.

And Gu Fan’s Void-Shattering Eyes quickly found them.

High-grade Spirit Crystals were embedded along the formation’s outer circulation routes, arranged beneath the mud in precise patterns.

Runes had been carved around them, each one glowing faintly with crimson light.

However, there was no hidden artifact that he could find.

Instead, as Gu Fan followed the crimson energy lines, they twisted through the mud like blood vessels before converging at the center of the clear ground, back to the massive, black skeletal tree.

And that is when he noticed a massive, bubbling pool of something dark and crimson soaking the twisted, dead roots.

"This is blood?!" Gu Fan frowned as he narrowed his eyes and stared.

"This keeps on getting creepy every other second. Are they using blood as the core instead of Spirit Crystals and artifacts?" Gu Fan muttered to himself.

Every time another disciple was injured, another thin stream of blood flowed through the mud and joined it.

Then the black roots absorbed it.

Gu Fan’s eyes narrowed, "This is ingenious."

The array was not powered by Spirit Crystals.

It was powered by slaughter.

The more blood spilled inside the formation, the stronger it became.

The more people died, the more terrifying the illusion grew.

A perfect cycle.

"But every cycle has a point where it can be broken."

He reached into his storage pouch and one after another, several talismans appeared between his fingers.

Each was inscribed with a different formation pattern.

Three were Crimson Flame Talismans.

Three were Thunder-Shaking Talismans.

Four were Spirit-Severing Talismans.

And in the centre of his palm rested a single pale-gold talisman, a Purifying Sunfire Talisman.

He absolutely refused to step a single foot inside this mind-warping array. He was going to use these talismans to blast this thing into oblivion.

Gu Fan had purchased them from the Heavenly Treasure Pavilion after Su Mei repeatedly insisted that a cultivator should always prepare for "unexpected business opportunities."

At the time, he had thought she merely wanted to empty his pockets. but now he had to admit that his dear sister Mei was right after all.

"Thank you, Pavilion Master Su." Gu Fan glanced at the blood pool, "Your expensive stuff might actually be useful for."

"But to think you would charge me for that," Gu Fan shook his head in amusement, as he grinned, "She did not even give him family discount this time."

Well, to be fair, Sister Mei was kind of annoyed that Gu Fan refused her request to follow him on this journey. So Gu Fan had to pay her with another round of sex and a lot of spirit stones.

"I will thank her properly when I get back."

Meanwhile, inside the array, another disciple raised his sword.

His eyes were bloodshot as he rushed towards the another disciple who was now a horned demon beast for him.

The sword began to descend and Gu Fan’s expression became cold.

"Enough." He flicked his wrist and threw a stone at lightning speed knocking the guy off balance just enough to make sure the sword missed chopping the other disciple in tow halves from head to toe vertically.

And then after saving him, he flicked his wrist again and Whoosh! The first Spirit-Severing Talisman flew from his hand and stuck to the mud several meters away from the tree.

Then the second talisman followed.

Then the third.

Then fourth.

And then the fifth.

Each talisman landed at a different place and sank halfway into the mud as their surfaces glowed faintly beneath the crimson fog.

Gu Fan’s eyes swept across the formation. Every talisman had been planted directly above a blood-energy channel, and together, they formed a circle around the black tree.

The crimson dome flickered uneasily, and inside the array, the illusions briefly weakened.

Gu Fan slowly raised both hands, and his fingers moved through a series of hand signs.

One.

Two.

Three.

The talismans beneath the mud began to tremble, and the blood-energy veins beneath them pulsed violently.

As Gu Fan’s final hand sign locked into place, Gu Fan yelled out loud, "Explode!"

Boom!

All five Spirit-Severing Talismans detonated at the same time, and the ground around the black tree split open.

Crimson energy erupted from the cracks from every direction, and the blood-energy channels feeding the black tree were disrupted simultaneously. The flow of Blood Spiritual Qi became chaotic instantly.

The crimson dome caging the Gu Clan disciples shook violently, and through his Void Shattering Eyes he saw the blood pool ripple beneath the ground.

The black tree trembled, and the illusion weakened.

And in that brief moment, one disciple finally saw the face of the man he had been trying to kill.

"Brother Ma?" His sword stopped inches from the other man’s throat as he stared in front of him in shock.

Hearing someone call his name, the haziness in the other disciple’s eyes cleared slightly as well. He stared back.

"Brother Chan?"

For a moment, both men looked confused. What was happening? Why were they pointing their weapons against each other?

But the sanity did not last long as the array surged again, and the illusion returned.

Their eyes became bloodshot, and they raised their weapons once more.

Gu Fan frowned.

"This is one stubborn array."