325 A Ghastly Face

But no matter how complete the [Blood Refining Art] is, if the essence of the technique is flawed, it would not be beneficial for Leon to practice it. 

"Reap, wash, and assimilate… With the power of blood, one will never know weakness…" 

Reading the first part of the manual, Leon began to frown. After he finished the rest of the first passage, his lips subconsciously twitched.

The wording of the first passage was too vague to understand the core values of the technique. What was the focus? What is the goal of practicing this technique? It did not explain anything in detail.

Leon did not know anything about the [Blood Refining Art], but he could immediately tell that the technique was problematic at a glance. 

The introductory verses were one of the most important sections of a technique. 

It must not only impart the core teachings of the technique but also give the practitioners a clear direction of practice.

If an introductory verse is vague, it becomes susceptible to misinterpretation. Misinterpretation then leads to variations. In the end, the chance of practicing the technique incorrectly was highly probable. 

Nevertheless, Leon did not give up on the [Blood Refining Art] immediately and continued to study it. The manual was recorded with notes of the core disciple's experience and doubts during their practice. 

He felt that the [Blood Refining Art] would be useful for him, but what he needed was not another Awakening cultivation technique either. 

As such, he was not seeing how the [Blood Refining Art] could be useful to him. The contradiction baffled him.

Shortly after reading through all the cultivation manuals in their entirety, Leon gained a more in-depth understanding of the technique and drew some conjectures.

The original version of the [Blood Refining Art] should have been entirely different from the current version when it was first founded by the Bloodfiend Sect.

Leon would not find it surprising if the original technique were altered due to its incompleteness or incompatibility to Awakeners. 

Whichever the case was, he believed that the original version [Blood Refining Art] focused on something else entirely. 

Generally, when Leon hears the name [Blood Refining Art], he would not think of it as some Awakening cultivation technique. Instead, he would think it is a body forging method.

When he thought of this point, he figured out why the [Blood Refining Art] might be useful. He was in dire need of body forging methods, and the original version might have been one such method.

He might have completed his meridian tempering previously, but this was much more useful for energy cultivation than body cultivation. 

After all, only energy cultivation place particular emphasis on channeling energy through the countless meridian pathways, while body cultivation focuses on the overall strengthening of the body. 

Leon recalled the little bit of body cultivation knowledge from treating body cultivators in his past life and remembered that body cultivation had five primary areas of focus in body forging. 

These five areas of focus are flesh, blood, bone, marrow, and viscera. If Leon were to divide these into stages and named them, they would be called Tempering Flesh, Refining Blood, Forging Bone, Cleansing Marrow, and Consolidating Viscera.

The order of these five stages did not matter in body cultivation. The only true measurement for the level of body cultivators is the weight of their punches.

Leon had the [Black Turtle Heavenly Guard] for flesh tempering, but he was still lacking body forging methods for the other four areas. 

"If I can grasp the original version of the [Blood Refining Art], I will make better progress in the blood refining stage. The Bloodfiend Sect's headquarters might have a copy of the original version. I should pay a visit when I get back." Leon mused.

If Leon learns that his mother had burned all the books, scriptures, and manuals on the Blood Mountain before leaving, he would be quite depressed.

"It'll be some time before I get back, though. How can I make use of this [Blood Refining Art] now?" Leon began to ponder with a frown.

"Reap, wash, and assimilate… With the power of blood, one will never know weakness." Leon repeated the first verse again. 

"This verse should at least be original… Hm?" Leon was in deep thoughts when he felt Lumi's presence appear next to him.

"What do you want—" Leon turned to ask when he suddenly froze at an unfamiliar and ghastly face smiling creepily at him.

"What the fuck!" 

Leon was so spooked he almost fell off the tree branch. However, he recovered quickly and reacted immediately.

Swoosh!

Leon reflectively backhanded the ghastly face away with a flaming strike. The ghastly face was very weak. After one flaming palm, it sent blazing away until it vaporized into nothingness by the fire.

"Fucking hell! That scared me. Where did this thing pop out from?" Leon cussed.

The ghast face appeared spiritual and had no body.

"Lumi, stop cultivating! We have company!"

Lumi was deeply immersed in cultivation and did not know what happened. Only after Leon shook her was she roused awake from deep cultivation and became startled in the next moment. 

"Ah? W-What is it, Leon?"

"We have company," Leon repeated.

"W-Where?" Lumi looked around but did not see where this so-called 'company' was. She looked around with confusion before asking, "Are you playing a prank on me, Leon?"

"No, I'm not. There was something here just now, but I killed it."

Leon frowned.

After activating [Spirit Eyes] to search the surrounding, he found nothing. Even his divine sense did not pick up anything.

"This is strange. I am not picking anything." Leon stated. His senses would not fail him, not unless he was experiencing an illusion or a hallucination of some sort.

Did he unwittingly get himself affected by the hallucinogens again? No, that should not be possible. He would not feel anything from an illusion or hallucination, but he definitely did when he struck the ghastly face.

"How did that thing sneak up without me noticing though?"

Leon began feeling a bit of dread towards the Weeping Forest. People had always feared the unknown, and he was no exception.

"Um…"

"What is it, Lumi? Did you discover anything?" 

"Well… I don't know what you saw earlier, but there seem to be people coming from over there though." 

Lumi pointed in the distance to the left of them.

A few hundred yards away, a group of six figures traveled on the thin stretch of empty dry land located between the Black Swamp and the Weeping Forest.

These people wore fur cloaks and had fairly massive builds compared to the average adult human. Some had bone swords and daggers strapped to their side, while the others had large bone hammers and spear strapped to their back.

Although they were all hooded, Leon could tell that they were humans through his [Spirit Eyes]. After he confirmed this, he said with surprise, "Oh? It's a group of six humans."

"Really? We didn't have to wait long at all." 

Lumi was also surprised, not expecting to encounter humans first.

Also, they had only been on top of the Weeping Tree for 20 minutes at most.

"Yeah, but we do not know if they are friendly just yet, so we will continue watching them for now. Try not to make any noise for now."

"Mm, got it."

While Leon was facing the approaching six humans' direction, he vigilance was raised to the max. 

He had not gotten over the previous matter with the ghastly face and did not know when another one would suddenly pop out.

If possible, he did not want to stay in the Weeping Forest for too long. It seemed very eerie and dangerous. But at the same time, he also wanted to get to the bottle of it.

…

"Pick up the pace, everyone. If we are too slow, we may not have time to pick up treasures." 

"Haiz, why did the Chief have to send us out to look for survivors? If anyone had been left behind in the Black Swamp, they would have already joined the pile of bones. Don't tell me, the Chief wanted to collect their remains?"

"Maybe. In any case, those people don't t seem to be from around here. They wear strange clothes and know some weird skills too. Perhaps, the Chief found some use for these people."

"Do you remember the way, Big Brother?" 

"En, it should have been around here. Alright, let us get this over and done with quickly. We don't want to lose a layer of skin while we are in here now." The leader of the group said.

"Haha, I'm not worried about that at all. I can hold on for a whole day before these black waters do me any harm. I am more concerned about whether we run into more of those patrol demons." The most robust person said.

"Alright, alright, can we hurry? You all have Tier 4 soul weapons, but I'm still using a Tier 3! I want a Tier 4 soul weapon too!" The younger male of the group complained.

With that, the group of six soon disappeared into the shroud of miasma. 

Meanwhile, back on the Weeping Tree's top, Leon's eyes lit up slightly as he overheard their conversation. The talk was brief, but he was able to learn a lot.