While he was escaping through the wilderness, Duncan had sometimes sensed locations where one animal had killed another pretty accurately. He could feel a sense of kinship in those places when he crossed them. As he was escaping in a hurry, he hadn't investigated these new feelings carefully.
Now that he was alone, Duncan's curiosity had been piqued and he was open to investigate a little bit. The bloodred stone in his hands emanating a slight slaughter aura intrigued him a bit.
Duncan didn't know if this was the only change he had experienced of late. He was still finding out new effects the breakthrough had on his body. He clearly understood that his latest breakthrough was a qualitative one and it had altered his body slightly. He attributed this change to the mysterious energy flowing from the vision in the sky into his body.
Duncan looked thoughtful for a moment, before piercing the stone in his hand with his sword. The moment the sword entered the stone, it started absorbing the bloodred aura present in the stone. Duncan watched it happen with fascination in his eyes.
As time passed, the sword absorbed the bloodred aura in the stone completely. The moment his sword absorbed all the bloodred aura, the stone crumbled into dust and fell off his hands. He could feel the satisfaction emanating from the sword as well.
Duncan squinted his eyes and probed his sword with his consciousness. This was the first time he was investigating his sword in such a deep manner. Duncan's consciousness didn't find anything unusual in the sword. But, his instincts were telling him that something was afoot with his sword.
Taking a deep breath, Duncan retrieved his consciousness and looked around. He spied a few more bloodred stones available among the loot he had acquired. But, Duncan didn't immediately use his sword on them.
Rather, he began to test out the other materials one by one. Without fail, the sword reacted to none of the materials present in the loot. Duncan frowned seeing this situation.
It was clear to him that his sword wasn't interested in any of them. That either meant they were useless to his sword or they didn't have what the sword hungered after. Duncan took out another bloodred stone and redid the experiment.
This time, the sword started vibrating in hunger and began to absorb the bloodred aura very quickly. It was as if a starving beast was provided with a feast. The sword didn't hold back at all.
After the next stone also turned into dust, Duncan probed his sword with his consciousness. There wasn't any change at all. Rather than getting disappointed, Duncan began to get intrigued a bit more.
Duncan thought seriously for a while, before taking a drastic decision. He took out just one bloodred stone and started feeding the other stones to his sword without hesitation. He only kept one because he wanted to understand what kind of material this stone was.
Soon, all the stones were devoured by his sword.
Duncan watched his sword absorb the bloodred aura from the stones one by one calmly. He wasn't in a hurry to be done with. Throughout the process, he kept his consciousness engulfing the sword, trying to figure out if there was indeed an artifact spirit being nurtured in the sword.
But, no matter how much he concentrated or probed, there was no reaction from his sword. If not for seeing his sword devouring the bloodred aura with his own naked eyes, Duncan wouldn't have believed it to be happening.
The only indication he received that there was something going on within his sword was that he could feel a slight sense of satisfaction emanating from the sword every time one stone was turned into dust.
When everything was over, there wasn't even a slight change in the sword. Duncan began doubting his own hypothesis at this moment. But still, he wasn't dissatisfied with the turn of events. He was happy to just know that his sword was strengthening itself in some bizarre manner.
Duncan expected the sword to react again when he sheathed it. But, to his disappointment, the sword lay there without any kind of reaction. So, he reluctantly sheathed it and looked at the remaining materials.
He had a hunch that none of these materials were needed for his sword. If not, his sword would have done something by now. Still, he decided to learn about them first before selling them off. Anything that was even remotely related to swords would be kept. As for others, it would depend on their value and how much it can provide value to them.
Duncan slowly turned his eyes towards the small pile to the side. This was the one that he was both apprehensive and excited about. There was nothing in it but miscellaneous trinkets. But, for the young geniuses of various sects to carry them with all the other resources, these items must contain some value.
Duncan eliminated all the sect tokens in the pile first. He didn't know if any of the sect tokens had a tracking function, but he didn't want to find it out by the hard way. After eliminating the tokens, Duncan started checking out the trinkets one by one in curiosity.
Most looked like stuff that was kept for sentimental reasons. But, among the trinkets, there were also some bizarre things present. There was a bone that exuded some kind of domineering aura that made Duncan's heart beat faster. Then, there was another trinket that looked similar to a token but didn't have any engravings on it.
Duncan went through them one by one calmly.
He wasn't in a hurry. He had made sure that he was in a secure place in the wilderness before he even took time to sort these things out. Among the trinkets, most didn't have any value in Duncan's eyes. Most of them were clutter that was left behind.
After probing them with his consciousness for some time, Duncan eliminated most of the trinkets as rubbish. However, among the trinkets, there were some rare and interesting finds as well.
There was a straw hat that Duncan found quite to his liking. He tried it out for a few minutes before putting it away. Then, he found another trinket that was shaped like a sea slug. When Duncan probed it with his consciousness, he could feel something different about it. So, he kept it aside.
There were a few pieces of jewelry that didn't interest Duncan much. But, they looked as if they would fetch some good price, so Duncan kept them as well. Like this, Duncan went through the entire pile one by one without haste.
In the end, he destroyed the waste that he didn't feel like carrying around and grouped the rest of the trinkets into a single pile. Three more trinkets he left to the side as he was intrigued by them the most.
Donning the straw hat, Duncan looked at the three trinkets that he had separated from the pile. One was an old parchment that looked very archaic. It was faded out mostly, but he could see some landmarks on it. Duncan figured that it was some kind of treasure map and wanted to have a second look at it.
The next was the sea slug-like trinket that gave off a weird vibe when he probed it with his consciousness. Duncan felt that this trinket was somewhat unique and didn't want to sell it to others. His gut told him that this trinket might come in handy one day. So, he kept it away from the pile that he was going to sell off.
The last trinket was a bit special in his opinion. The trinket looked like a large pearl necklace. But, something about the necklace made Duncan's hair stand straight. The necklace gave off a weird energy that both intrigued and irritated him.
He didn't know why such a weird necklace would be in the hands of a righteous cultivator. Duncan felt that the vibe this necklace gave off was somewhat familiar to him. But, he couldn't pin down the feeling no matter how he tried to recall.
Duncan decided to let it rest for now and packed the stuff into separate storage rings. After removing the imprints present on them, Duncan put on a storage ring that had more space than what he originally had. He took in all the items that he didn't feel like selling into it.
He used his original storage ring to collect the spirit stones that were in a large pile. He used one another storage ring to collect all the items he intended to sell in the black market later.
Then, Duncan looked at the small pile of empty storage rings that were not going to be of much use to him and felt a headache coming. The only drawback of looting his victims was that, he was now left with a large number of unwanted storage rings. The items he had could be fitted in three storage rings at most. The remaining thirty or so storage rings had no use at all.
He couldn't collect them together like he did with the trinkets. Destroying them also felt like a little waste. He knew that there was always a demand for storage rings in the market. So, he was reluctant to destroy them as well.
But, selling off so many storage rings at the same time will only draw unwanted attention to him. Duncan was completely stumped on how to dispose of them in the future. Letting out a large sigh, he collected them in a small cloth and tied it to his hip.
Now that he had dealt with the miscellaneous stuff, Duncan felt that it was time to concentrate on what was important. He needed to shore up his deficiencies quickly. If not, it might lead to his demise sooner or later.
It was time for him to go through the available martial arts manuals and find something appropriate for him…
