Grinding EXP From a Demon Hunting Ship

A deserted island.

Shishanzi performed a tortoise shell divination, sacrificing his lifespan.

He kept raising the stakes. In the blink of an eye, he had consumed one hundred and sixty years of his lifespan!

The effects were plain to see.

Shishanzi’s face grew increasingly old and withered.

Several more wrinkles appeared around his eyes and brow.

Even for a Nascent Soul, one hundred and sixty years of lifespan was by no means a small price to pay.

Shishanzi’s expression was calm, completely unconcerned by his own aging.

"Let me see."

"Who is it, exactly?"

His eyes were grave as he stared into the smoke, awaiting the divination’s result.

BUZZ.

The smoky image manifested by the tortoise shell divination suddenly shifted.

The scene within the smoke became murky and dim, like stirred paint. The dark-red continent representing Volcano State quickly vanished.

「A moment later.」

The smoke turned as black as if it had been steeped in thick ink, leaving only darkness.

The profound darkness gave off an ominous feeling that weighed on one’s spirit and caused a faint sense of dread.

’Hm?’

’What is the meaning of this?’

Shishanzi’s eyes flickered, a hint of confusion on his face.

He formed a hand seal for his Technique, manipulating the smoky image to transform it further.

SWOOSH.

The pitch-black scene grew clearer.

A desolate, black plain appeared, where a sinister wind howled. Now and then, flecks of white could be seen—the exposed bones of some giant beast, half-buried in the earth.

A black fog, so thick it seemed impossible to disperse, permeated the wasteland.

At the very center of the black fog stood a silent and mysterious black-and-gold palace, like an eternal, unchanging night.

And lurking within the palace was...

BUZZ.

A pitch-black eye suddenly materialized.

It stared right at Shishanzi!

"Aargh!"

Shishanzi cried out as a searing pain shot through his eyes.

He instinctively squeezed them shut as two lines of bloody tears streamed down his face.

CLANG.

The tortoise shell fell to the ground and shattered with a sharp CRACK.

The manifested smoke, along with the eye within it, vanished abruptly.

"Senior Brother?!"

Startled, Fuyunzi rushed forward to support Shishanzi.

"Hahh..."

Shishanzi’s face was pale and weak. He barely managed to stay on his feet.

A dignified Nascent Soul True Monarch, and yet in this moment, he seemed to struggle just to stand firm.

With a flicker of his Storage Ring, he retrieved several Spirit Pills and swallowed them. A bit of color returned to his face.

But Shishanzi’s expression remained grave. With a look of lingering fear, he muttered to himself.

’A Divinity Transformation realm being?’

’No, a sixth-rank fiendish thing!’

"What?"

Hearing this, Fuyunzi was shocked, his pupils contracting.

A sixth-rank fiendish thing... An existence of that level could wreak havoc across the seas and bring ruin to the archipelagos if a Divinity Transformation master didn’t intervene.

It was, without a doubt, a great calamity for all living things!

"Senior Brother Shishanzi, what did you divine?"

Fuyunzi asked quickly, his expression turning solemn.

"It’s not that dire."

"I can be sure of one thing: this fiendish thing is not in good condition. It seems to be sealed away somewhere."

Shishanzi offered some reassurance before explaining.

"For this divination, I used the aura you provided as a catalyst to trace it back to its source..."

"In the process, I consumed over a hundred years of my lifespan. Finally, it seems I broke through some kind of barrier and pinpointed its location."

"But..."

A tremor of fear entered Shishanzi’s voice.

"The source of that aura is a sixth-rank fiendish thing. When I rashly tried to spy on a being of such a high Personhood, my divination technique was broken, and I suffered some backlash."

"Senior Brother..."

Fuyunzi sounded guilty.

Shishanzi had spoken lightly of the divination’s backlash, but Fuyunzi knew the true cost.

Sensing Shishanzi’s aura, he could tell that the lifespan lost from the backlash alone was at least thirty or forty years.

A loss like that, on top of the lifespan he had already sacrificed... In total, Shishanzi had lost nearly two hundred years of life from this single divination!

Even for a Nascent Soul True Monarch, such a loss was a grievous injury, truly heartbreaking!

"Enough." Shishanzi waved his hand, his tone nonchalant.

"We are Sword Cultivators. Why are you moping like a maiden?"

"I’ve lived for several centuries and seen all the wonders the archipelagos have to offer. Compared to a mortal’s life, isn’t mine a hundred, even a thousand times better?"

Shishanzi, for his part, was quite philosophical about it.

As a practitioner of divination, he had long made peace with the cost to his lifespan.

Then, he began to recount the findings of his divination and his own deductions.

"According to the divination, this fiendish thing is located south of the archipelagos... Future explorations can use this as a guide."

"Furthermore, based on my analysis, I deduce that this fiendish thing is very likely an experimental subject cultivated by demonic cultivators during the era of the Blood Moon Demon Palace."

"That makes sense."

Fuyunzi listened and nodded in agreement.

Only the Blood Moon Demon Palace could have been capable of nurturing an existence like a sixth-rank fiendish thing.

"The remnants of the Demon Palace must have found this Blood Moon legacy site. By relying on the fiendish thing within, they grasped the method of the rules and cultivated a Nascent Soul True Monarch."

"This time, with the struggle for the Volcano Grotto Heaven, the Demon Palace remnants were tempted. They dispatched this Nascent Soul cultivator to lie low in the sea region, preparing to stir up trouble, and you just happened to run into him!"

Shishanzi speculated.

"Therefore, our most urgent task is to find this Nascent Soul cultivator and then... follow the trail to wipe out the Demon Palace remnants and... the sixth-rank fiendish thing they left behind!"

Shishanzi was perfectly composed as he laid out his plan.

Fuyunzi added his own thoughts, asking a question.

"Senior Brother Shishanzi, have you locked onto this Nascent Soul cultivator? How do we find him?"

The sea was boundless. Even if they limited the search to just the Day Flame Sea Region, it was still vast beyond measure.

In such a massive area, if a Nascent Soul True Monarch was determined to use Concealment, there was almost no way to find them.

To this, Shishanzi replied with complete confidence.

"Don’t worry."