“Yes…”
“Do Body Cultivators also control swords?”
“Generally… they do not control swords.”
“If you can’t control swords either, what are you excited about?” asked Mo Hua.
Bai Zisheng took a deep breath, a sense of powerlessness welling up in his heart.
He lay down on the ground, looking up at Mo Hua and said earnestly,
“Mo Hua, someday, someone in this world will be talked to death by you!”
Mo Hua looked confused, “How could that be? After all, everyone is a Cultivator with a tough Taoist Heart. How could someone be talked to death by a few words?”
“Rest assured, there will be!” Bai Zisheng declared confidently.
After parting with the Bai siblings, Mo Hua returned home and started to learn the Blood Drawing Art.
The Blood Drawing Art wasn’t so much a Spell, nor could it truly be counted as a secret technique. It was more akin to a Tao Cultivation Skill like herb picking, mining, or Spirit Plant cultivation.
Some Cultivators relied on this skill to extract the fresh Monster Blood, selling it to merchants or other Cultivators who needed Monster Blood.
The process of Blood Drawing was not difficult, but it was burdensome on the Divine Sense and also rather laborious.
Blood-Drawing Cultivators were similar to those who toiled at the Spiritual Transport Wharf, moving goods through Body Cultivation, except these used their physical strength to move goods, whereas Blood Drawing employed Divine Sense to transport Monster Blood.
Physical strength could recover quickly, but Divine Sense did not, so the amount of Monster Blood that could be extracted by a Cultivator each day was limited, leading to modest profits. At least near Tongxian City, there weren’t many Cultivators proficient in the Blood Drawing Art.
Mo Hua guessed that some Cultivators in various state boundaries could extract large amounts of Monster Blood and make a living by doing so; otherwise, due to its rarity, the Spiritual Ink used by Formation Masters would become much more expensive.
But this was just speculation. With limited experience in the Cultivation World, Mo Hua couldn’t be sure.
The Blood Drawing Art wasn’t difficult to learn. Following the instructions in the manual, Mo Hua learned it after going through it a few times.
As Bai Zixi said, the Blood Drawing Art was a simplified version of Divine Sense Manipulation, but this Manipulation couldn’t take place through the air. Instead, one had to place their palm against the Monster Beasts’ fur, sense the flow of Monster Blood, and then use Divine Sense to control it, drawing it out from the Monsters’ bloodstream.
In Tongxian City, there were no living or freshly dead Monster Beasts for Mo Hua to practice the Blood Drawing Art on.
Mo Hua had no choice but to ask Mo Shan to cut a piece of hide from a Wild Cattle Monster and pour water on it, then, through the hide, he used his Divine Sense to guide the flow of water.
Although this differed greatly from the actual Blood Drawing Art, it was better than nothing.
Mo Hua practiced a few times in reality and soon mastered the technique.
The biggest problem, however, was that even though he learned the Blood Drawing Art, there were no Monster Beasts for Mo Hua to extract Monster Blood from.
Without Monster Blood, he could not prepare Spiritual Ink. The scarcity of Spiritual Ink remained unsolved.
After several days of thought, Mo Hua came up with only one solution:
Go into the mountains to hunt monsters!
Find a way to enter Big Black Mountain, slay the Monster Beasts, then while they are freshly dead and their blood has not yet clotted, extract the vibrant Monster Blood directly from their veins.
This was the only way to stably and abundantly acquire Monster Blood.
Mo Hua looked up: his gaze passed the houses and streets of Tongxian City and rested upon the dark, profound Big Black Mountain in the distance.
The mountain ranges were treacherous, brimming with poison and miasma, shrouded in mist, and pervaded with Monster Qi.
It was the dwelling place of formidable Demonic Creatures and also where countless Monster Hunters from Tongxian City had sought their livelihoods or met their end over thousands of years…