Naked Sword Art

"It's... red."

Beast core ranking from weakest to strongest:

Black, Blue, Purple, Red, Gold.

Corresponding names were:

Ordinary, Saint, Demon, Legendary, and Celestial.

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Back when Xun Wei revealed the fact that she possessed a purple beast core, Xiao Hei gave them a brief explanation about what the different colours meant.

Putting it into his hands, Xiao Fang could feel the tremendous amount of Qi being stored in the core. He nearly drooled at the thought of cultivating such a cultivation treasure.

Since the Abnormal Beast was dead, the other tiered beasts were in disarray. Some continued to attack, while the others began to flee. Seeing this, Xiao Fang stored the glowing red beast core in his spatial ring, then with the Abnormal Cannibal Beast's help, he hunted the remaining tiered beasts down.

When he was done, he extracted their cores, and filled his high-grade spirit pendants. Satisfied with what he had, he planned to leave. However, he stopped when he noticed the Abnormal Cannibal Beast stabbing, then carrying the corpse of the Abnormal Squid Beast with it.

Xiao Fang was wondering whether it was planning to eat it. However, considering how poisonous its skin was, he had his doubts. What the Cannibal Abnormal Beast wanted to do with the Squid's body was none of his concern, so he eventually stopped thinking about it.

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A few minutes later, Xiao Fang met up with Xiao Hei as he exited the 7th floor of the Ancestral Training Grounds.

Xiao Hei had been laying flat on the ground, but quickly sat up when she heard someone coming. She was glad to see that it was someone she recognized.

"Fang, you're back. Are you done already?" She asked.

Sitting with her legs spread apart, it seemed to Xiao Fang that she had been doing snow-angels without the snow on the ground to pass the time.

"Mn, I was just visiting a friend," Xiao Fang replied as he put his blindfold on and walked away.

"A friend? What friend?" Xiao Hei said as she stood up and followed him through the illusory wall.

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When Xiao Fang and Xiao Hei finally arrived back at the guild house, he took her to his room then showed her what he obtained from his trip.

Xiao Fang flicked his wrist, then a large glowing red orb appeared on his hands. Xiao Hei immediately knew what it was, so her eyes widened in disbelief.

"Ah! Where did you get that!?"

"I got it from another abnormal beast," he answered.

Although red beast cores were only considered rare where she was from, Xiao Hei never expected him to find one in a country like this. Also Xiao Fang's nonchalance made it seem as if he only stumbled upon it by chance, and didn't fully understand how great of a fortuitous encounter this was.

"Do you know how amazing this is?" She said with sparkling eyes.

"I was actually hoping you could fill me in. You didn't really say much about it the last time we were on the topic."

The reason why Xiao Hei didn't Xiao say much about it in the past was because she didn't think he'd find one here.

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"As you know, beast cores are divided into 5 different ranks: Ordinary (Black), Saint (Blue), Demon (Purple), Legendary (Red), and Celestial (Gold). Each of which could be cultivated to increase one's spirit cultivation realm or made into a powerful weapon. Furthermore, anything above the Ordinary rank could also give additional benefits."

Saint (Blue): Body Enhancement.

- Strength, Agility, Defense, attack speed, etc.

Demon (Purple): Minor Unique Ability.

- Black fire, flight, healing/regeneration, etc.

- This rank is often compared to Spirit Attributes in terms of battle power.

Legendary (Red): Resistance.

- Fire resistance, cold resistance, Lightning resistance, etc.

- Those that have successfully absorbed a red beast core may have the ability to counter those that have absorbed a Demon beast core.

Celestial (Gold): Major Unique Ability.

- Enhances one's unique ability, oftentimes to the point of being a strong passive ability.

[ Beast cores can't be stacked. Also, the more beast cores of the same rarity someone absorbs the less likely they will be successful in absorbing it. ]

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"So this beast core will give me a resistance against something. I assume because I got it from a poison-type beast that it'll be a resistance against poison," Xiao Fang said.

"This is a Poison-Type Resistance Core!? Fang, the poison-type resistance core is by far the most sought after resistance core there is. If you sell it at an auction, you'll be rich!"

Although Xiao Fang understood the value of money, if the core was really as special as Xiao Hei said it was, he would much rather use it on himself. Furthermore, there was so much Qi contained in this core, so the last thing he wanted to do was sell it.

Xiao Fang suddenly crossed his legs then told Xiao Hei to help him absorb it. Xiao Hei frowned thinking that she wasn't able to convince him to sell it.

"Are you sure? Something else you must know is that there's only a slim chance that you will be able to succeed. If you aren't at least in the Heavenly realm, you won't be able to completely absorb it," Xiao Hei said, making a last attempt to change his mind.

Xiao Hei exaggerated it a bit because she felt it was necessary. She was still convinced that Xiao Fang didn't fully understand how much he could sell that red beast core for. However, what she didn't know was that Xiao Fang didn't care about money as much as he cared about his cultivation realms.

Despite her attempts to change his mind, Xiao Fang had already made his decision, so he was not going to change it for anything. He had already set his sights on the red core, so there wasn't anything she could say to make him sell it.

Seeing that he wasn't going to change his mind, Xiao Hei finally sighed in defeat. She then sat down on the ground behind him, then placed her two small hands on his back. Once she was ready, Xiao Fang began.

!!!

The Poison Qi evaded his body, turning his pale skin greyish, his well-defined muscles shriveled, and his veiny arms bulged. 

The pain was immense, but Xiao Fang had been through much worse in his life. Training his Lightning Spirit Attribute every night made the poison currently invading his body feel like a tickle. 

Seeing his face turn pale made Xiao Hei feel worried for him. She couldn't tell if he was really hurting or just hiding it really well. However, after a while she eventually noticed him frowning. 

Although the pain wasn't so bad in the beginning, it quickly got worse as the poison spread to every part of his body. Eventually, he was clenching his jaw tightly as the poison made his body experience several types of pain. First he felt like he was burning from the inside, then he felt like he was freezing, then he felt like his skin was peeling. Every minute that passed by he would feel something even more painful till he began to sweat. 

Xiao Hei tried to direct the Qi towards his dantian, but it seemed as if it had a mind of its own. Before long, there wasn't a spot in his body that wasn't occupied by Poisonous Qi.

Although his dantian was absorbing the poisonous Qi, it was only doing so at a meager pace.

Finally, Xiao Fang began to frown as the pain was beginning to feel unbearable.

"Fang, we should stop," she said after seeing the pained expression on his face.

As much as he wanted to stop, he knew if he did, he'd be losing all the Poisonous Qi that was currently in his body. It wouldn't simply return back into the beast core but be gone forever. Xiao Fang understood this, so he refused to stop. He was going to fully absorb the red beast core no matter what.

Suddenly, his violet eyes glowed hauntingly, as a change began to take place within his body. Almost as if something dormant had been awakened in his dantian, it began to devour the invading Qi like a whirlpool. The moment it happened, Xiao Hei quickly took her hands off his back. She didn't know what it was, but it gave her arms goosebumps, and she could feel a chill running down her spin. 

She had felt this feeling before when he took her virginity, but this time it was much stronger. Whatever it was, it was unlike anything she had ever seen in her continent, and from the looks of it, Xiao Fang didn't seem to be aware of its existence.

Eventually, Xiao Hei began to notice the pained expression on Xiao Fang's face lessened, but the thing that surprised her was how quickly his dantian was able to absorb the tremendous amounts of Qi.

'This...'

She watched in shock as his face became calm again. Before she knew it, the red core had completely lost the enormous amounts of Qi it had, and it seemed to have all been absorbed by Xiao Fang. He had absorbed it all in a matter of seconds. It was so quick, she didn't know what to think.

"Fang, your cultivation realm!"