492: Chapter 70 Three Demon Arts_2 492: Chapter 70 Three Demon Arts_2 Xiao Jie was speechless, thinking to himself how the old monkey had started showing off his literary skills.

“Did that scholar teach you this?”

“Ha ha ha, of course, let’s not change the subject.

With such a beauty beside you, have you never been tempted?”

“Ye Luo and I are just friends.”

Online romance and stuff, maybe ten years ago Xiao Jie might have been interested, but now he was well past that age.

Ye Luo is a decent teammate, that’s all.

Despite fitting in with the crowd, due to his Qi Refining Skill, Xiao Jie felt a sense of tranquility lately, even in the presence of girls, he had no other thoughts.

Xiao Jie suddenly had a thought; could cultivating immortality truly bring one peace of mind?

Since he had learned the Qi Refining Skill, he hadn’t felt hot-blooded in a long time.

Xiao Jie understood that many of a person’s emotional needs are determined by their physiology.

Love is nothing but a chemical reaction caused by hormones.

Now at the seventh level of Qi Refining Technique, the changes brought about by the spiritual energy to his body might be causing some peculiar effects.

At this thought, he suddenly felt an uneasy sensation.

Nah, he’d have to test it out later and make sure it wasn’t causing any side effects.

“Ah, looking at you, you really are wholeheartedly pursuing the path of immortality,” Yuan Bai said.

“But while you pursue immortality, don’t waste your years and miss out on life.”

Xiao Jie laughed, “Yuan, you’ve been in the mundane world for a few months, how come you’ve become so sensitive?

Wait, don’t tell me you’ve fallen for someone?”

“Heh heh, you guessed it.

I thought my time was up, and I had no chance with that woman, but now it seems I can renew our connection.

I owe you one for that.

Come on, let me toast you.”

The two then began to drink.

Yuan Bai was buoyant, pouring various drinks into his mouth one after another.

Having survived life and death situations in Canglin State, now back in familiar Luoyang Town, Xiao Jie relaxed quite a bit.

They hit it off even better, singing and dancing when they were pumped up.

But while Yuan Bai was truly drunk, Xiao Jie was just pretending.

He hadn’t even smelled the alcohol, just passing the craving by watching the screen and reluctantly opened a can of beer to join in.

He wasn’t drunk himself, but that didn’t stop him from letting his older brother drink to his heart’s content.

“You must be tired of monkey wine by now, but I’ve recently learned a new drink.

Try this ‘Immortal Drunk,’ a recipe I learned from an Immortal.”

“Ha ha, good stuff, but it’s a bit too mild—eh!”

“Yuan, you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk, keep them coming.”

Xiao Jie felt helpless; this old monkey really was cheeky.

“Let’s have another then.

This bottle of ‘West Wind Strong’ is good stuff I brought back from Canglin State.

Give it a try.”

“Good, good, now this is what I call good liquor, huh—huh.”

Watching Yuan Bai completely knocked down, Xiao Jie finally breathed a sigh of relief; this meal had cost him ten or so taels of silver.

He didn’t get to taste any wine himself, what a loss.

Not only did he get no taste of it, his character wasn’t drunk either.

His 69 Constitution wasn’t for nothing, and it seemed that some legendary trait of the Qi Refining Technique, whether it was ‘Dining on the Wind and Drinking Dew’ or ‘Immunity to Poison,’ also appeared effective against alcohol.

After sending Yuan Bai to the guest room, Xiao Jie didn’t rush to log off; he still had much to do, things that had to be settled before tomorrow.

He headed straight for the auction, first to stock up on materials, brewing some monkey wine and making some ‘Secret Dog Food’ to replenish his stock.

Hey, someone bought a bottle of ‘Immortal Drunk,’ not bad, so he hung a few more bottles for sale.

Now that he had money, these were his steady sources of income; he couldn’t abandon them.

He also needed to make more ‘Blood Rice Cake.’ He wasn’t worried about corpse poison himself, but others still needed it.

Ghost Mist Ridge, apart from ghosts, was full of various skeletons, zombies, and other monsters; it was inevitable to need corpse poison protection.

After taking care of daily chores, Xiao Jie started searching for demon art skill books.

Now that he finally had the ability to learn magic, he couldn’t waste it.

Entering “demon art” in the keyword field and choosing to sort by price, he casually searched and a slew of demon art skill books popped up.

Xiao Jie thought there indeed were many.

Magic skill books, although they were produced less, were consumed even less since Masters of Magic were rare.

As a result, precious magic books were snapped up at high prices as soon as they were listed, while the rubbish ones were of no interest to anyone.

‘Devil Fire Skill’: price: 40 taels.

‘Rapid Water Arrow’: price: 38 taels.

‘Stinky Fart Skill’: price: 44 taels.

Snake Stick Skill: Priced at 50 taels.

Eagle Eye Skill: Priced at 50 taels.

Bull Strength Skill: Priced at 60 taels.

Leopard Swiftness Technique: Priced at 60 taels.

Tiger Power Skill: Priced at 80 taels.

Fox Charm Skill: Priced at 120 taels.

Summon Wolf Spirit: Priced at 120 taels.

Summon Poison Snake Cluster: Priced at 130 taels.

Summon Giant Spider: Priced at 134 taels.

Summoning Death Crow: Priced at 140 taels.

Demonized Beast: Priced at 180 taels.

Wild Boar Transformation: Priced at 199 taels.

Weasel Transformation: Priced at 250 taels.

Fierce Tiger Transformation: Priced at 550 taels.

Giant Catfish Transformation: Priced at 680 taels.

Eagle Transformation: Priced at 1999 taels.

Xiao Jie was dazzled, finding that demon arts and Daoist magic skills often related to animals, many sporting reflections of various animals.

Among them, shape-shifting demon arts were the most expensive, allowing one to transform into an animal and gain a set of beast skills.

Before, he had asked An Ran about her shape-shifting demon art, which she had learned through completing tasks with corresponding demons.

Although this method was a bit troublesome, it saved money, buying Skill Books was also an option, but the prices were somewhat exorbitant.

What stunned him were the prices of some Skill Books, which seemed outrageously predatory, such as this Eagle Transformation, demanding two thousand taels of silver—who could afford that?

However, thinking about how it would enable him to fly afterward, it did indeed seem worth it.

Yet, these were not considerations he needed to make now, as Xiao Jie was still only at the entry-level of demon arts and, lacking a professional core ability, couldn’t upgrade his demon art level, so he couldn’t learn the slightly more powerful demon arts.

Therefore, he redid his search, this time adding one restriction—entry-level demon arts.

This time, there were far fewer options.

Xiao Jie then weeded out those seemingly useless ones and finally settled on three.

Devil Fire Skill: Releases a ball of fox demon fire with some tracking ability to attack the enemy, causing 30 points of magic damage, reducing their Body Defense by 20 points, and preventing them from being invisible.

Learning requires: Spiritual 30, entry-level demon art.

Auction price: 40 taels.

Eagle Eye Skill: Enhance your vision, allowing you to see distant places for 60 seconds.

Learning requires: Spiritual 30, entry-level demon art.

Auction price: 50 taels.

Leopard Swiftness Technique: Increases the Agility attribute of a unit by 10 points, and movement speed by 20% for 60 minutes, you can only enhance one target with this effect at a time.

Learning requires: Spiritual 40, entry-level demon art, auction price: 60 taels.

Xiao Jie was clear about his role; An Ran followed the path of transformation fighting, while he remained a Swordman, using demon art merely as an auxiliary skill, so naturally, there was no need to learn those attack, summoning, or transformation types of demon arts.

It was more suitable to use demon arts that weakened the enemy and strengthened himself.

Devil Fire Skill wasn’t very damaging, but it could reduce enemy defense and prevent invisibility, useful for fighting bosses and in PVP.

Eagle Eye Skill could detect enemy locations and observe terrain preemptively.

Leopard Swiftness Technique could further enhance his agility, all valuable magic skills.

He bought all three books in one go.

Suddenly half of his three hundred taels of silver was gone.

Fortunately, these were all entry-level demon arts, and their prices were somewhat acceptable.

The later ones were ridiculously expensive.

After everything was busy, Xiao Jie finally logged out of the game.