Chapter 121 – Florida Man Outruns Cops by Mimicking Animals
A group of 20 golden core cultivators blindly charged toward Leo. They ignored the strength difference and attacked with their palms in unison.
Ten palms hit Leo's chest and back while he hadn't finished changing his clothes. Their hands directly touched his skin.
"Huh?"
Leo frowned while he was in the middle of wearing a new t-shirt. He wondered what their problem was.
"What's the big deal, dudes? Can't you see that I'm changing clothes?"
The cultivators also frowned as their full-power attacks were ineffective. They then rechecked Leo's cultivation base.
The cultists' expressions turned dark as they were offended. However, none of them could see through Leo's cultivation base. The only thing they noticed was his rainbow aura.
"A soul formation cultivator?" One of them guessed Leo's strength, but it was far off.
Leo glanced at them for a moment. When he recalled that he didn't know the cult's headquarters' location, he had an idea.
"You there, boy. Are you one of those cultists? What was the name? Fatui Cult?"
The cultists flinched as if they weren't Leo's opponent. All golden core cultivators took several steps back and pulled out their weapons from their spatial rings. Realizing that they weren't Leo's opponent, one of the cultists asked Leo to de-escalate the situation.
"Senior, this is a commoner's town. Someone with your status shouldn't cause trouble here. It will affect your reputation."
Noticing how quickly their attitude changed, Leo was impressed.
"Ah, finally some smart people. I've met so many stupid cultivators that I feel sick. Or should I say, great strength comes with great idiocy? When a person is weak, that person cultivates brain cells? Too bad, they're a tat stupid. Shame."
"…"
Nobody understood what Leo mumbled about.
10 seconds later, the golden core cultists felt the burn from their palms. They looked at their hands in confusion.
Everybody's hands swelled and turned purple. Their finger bones shattered while their arms grew new boneless limbs at a rapid rate. Two seconds later, the swelling disease reached their shoulders, enlarging their muscle mass and creating new organs at random.
One of them grew a large eyeball on his shoulder as if he was a villain character in Resident Evil. Two grew ribcages from their shoulders and spinal cords while the rest got extra limbs.
The mutation process seemed to benefit the cultivators at first. But when the purple blood reached their hearts, they collapsed and stopped breathing.
Leo finally finished putting on his new clothes. He hummed and gazed at the dead mutated humans in a good mood. Sitting next to the corpses, Leo collected their bodies into his spatial ring, putting them in the same ring as the mysterious blue stone.
"Nice! Free yin fluid."
Nothing was better than free materials. Unfortunately, Leo couldn't steal their lifespan here as he was outside his domain.
After storing the dead cultivators, Leo looked around.
Surrounding Leo were hundreds of cowering commoners. They trembled and looked at Leo in fear, unable to move. As they were commoners, they didn't dare to do anything stupid like the guards.
Noticing how the situation escalated, Leo sighed. He approached one of the onlookers and questioned them.
The person was a wandering merchant, who carried a wooden backpack full of trinkets and tools. He shivered as Leo approached.
The merchant was a 50-year-old man. He had a long and thick mustache, but he had no beard. His long messy hair was already grey, but he had a bald forehead.
"You, there."
"M-Me?"
"Yes, you. Do you know where the Fatui Cult's headquarters is?"
The merchant looked around him to ask for help, but the other commoners finally regained their leg strength and ran away.
Seeing how he was abandoned, the merchant swallowed his fear and answered honestly.
"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know. I'm also a visitor here."
"I see."
Leo lightly snorted as he pitied himself for asking the wrong person. Still, feeling bad for the innocent bystander, Leo thought of something. He scanned his spatial rings, checking if he had something useful in this situation. He also picked up 20 spatial rings of the golden core cultivators earlier.
It was easy to find something valuable among the loot. Leo unsealed one of the rings and ejected a handful of spirit stones. As he directly touched the spirit stones, they were upgraded into essence stones.
Leo flickered one of the essence stones to the merchant, which the latter barely caught it. Leo didn't forget to advertise his store.
"I see that you're a wandering merchant. If you have time, visit my humble store north of here. It's not far from Magpie City. You can't miss it! If you do, I'll sell you something good. Of course, it might be expensive, but they will be worth your time!"
After pitching the sale, Leo left the wondering merchant alone. He leaped to the sky.
.
.
"…"
Jiang Cheng, the merchant, gulped and gazed at the essence stone in his hand for a moment. A few seconds later, he dropped it on the ground as it burnt his skin.
"Ow! It's hot!"
The essence stone fell into one of the puddles. As soon as it touched the water, the clear puddle got contaminated and emitted rainbow light.
Jiang Cheng patted his scarred hands on his robes in pain. Still, as he was curious, he grabbed a pair of chopsticks from his ware and picked up the round stone.
PLOP
As the essence stone looked like a glass marble, a pair of chopsticks weren't suitable for picking the round ball. The merchant switched his tool to fire tongs and picked it up.
Looking at the item closer, the man widened his eyes in shock. He could roughly guess what it was even though it was incorrect.
"Isn't this a spirit stone?! A spirit stone that those immortals use?! I-If I use this, can I become an immortal or a cultivator like them?!"
Jiang Cheng looked left and right. He took off his outer layer of robes and wrapped the essence stone. He then put the bundle of clothes in his wooden backpack and sprinted out of town.
The gate guards didn't stop the man. He let the guy out as many people came in and out every day, so there was no point checking leaving people.
After leaving the city, the wandering merchant dryly laughed. He thought about Leo's words and looked north.
"I remember Magpie City. It's a small town that big firms ignore. Well, since there won't be as many competitors, should I pay them a visit and see what I can buy and resell? Also, I need a place to study about this!"
Jiang Cheng had never had a chance to practice martial arts. He wondered if he could fly like the Fatui cultists in the Frozen Fire City too.
.
.
After ditching the bald forehead merchant, Leo continued scanning the city, searching for landmarks and big buildings.
"Oh, there!"
Leo noticed the tallest pagoda not far from there. He thought of the pagodas in the mystic realm and wondered if weird monsters lived there as well.
Still, the scent of Cat was getting thinner as the odor of commoners, latrines, and food mixed together. It started to smell the same.
After landing, Leo stopped relying on his eyes and solely focused on his nose. He even concentrated and commanded his cells to focus on the olfactory system.
The living cancer cells were cooperative. Leo's face whitened as his transparent blood gathered in his face, carrying countless drops of element essence.
Leo's five senses sharpened. Although his eyes couldn't perceive the color of the scent, his nose created a mental image of scent flow in his mind, filtering and differentiating each odor.
Having another mental map in his mind, Leo's body moved by instinct. He crawled on all four and sprinted like a dog.
Leo didn't understand why he degraded himself to that of a dog. However, by lowering his stance, he picked up the scent better. Although he was ashamed and embarrassed, Leo pushed on and ignored the bystanders.
"WOOF-WOOF COMING THROUGH! Don't stand in my way, or I'll nom-nom woof you!"
At first, Leo ran through the busy streets like a 4-legged animal. But after getting used to it, he started pushing his legs and arms longer, sprinting like a cheetah. Then, he started parkouring instinctively over people and obstacles in front of him.
Running for two kilometers, Leo arrived in front of a shabby wooden cabin in a slum area. However, two nascent soul cultivators stood in front of the building.
Leo stopped running and stood on two legs. He patted his hands twice.
"Ah…"
He suddenly flinched as he remembered something important. Along the way, he accidentally touched random objects with his bare hands when he parkouring through the crowded places.
Leo secretly prayed that no innocent bystanders got hurt by the random radiation that he left behind.
"Oh, no. Anyway…"
He gazed at the nascent soul cultivators, who already noticed Leo's arrival. They sweated profusely as they realized that Leo had a higher cultivation base than theirs.
"Gentlemen, I'll be brief. GTFO, or else."
The two guards looked at each other. They then cupped their fists and flew away without saying a word.
Leo nodded in approval, "Finally, some smart people. I hate dealing with idiots."
Resuming the posture of a 4-leg animal, Leo entered the building and followed Cat's scent.
.
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It had been a week since every mystic realm portal on this planet was open. However, not everybody came out early as the emperor or Situ Nantian.
Fatui Cult sent many people into the same mystic realm. As there were two portals in their territory, they got to send 20 people in. However, nobody had come out to report about their expedition result yet.
As most big shots were away, the strongest person in the cult was just a soul transformation elder. He was also in charge of sacrificial rituals as he cultivated the rare blood element, which required cultivators to gather the blood of other cultivators to get stronger.
In front of an altar, the elder wore black robes and a black wood mask to cover his face. His scarce white hair couldn't hide his bald head and his pale skin.
The elder stared at the cages of today's sacrifices. He also frowned when he noticed the giant monster, who nonchalantly ate another disciple from his sect.
"What have you idiots captured!?"
