Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Heterogeneity

"If it’s a living person, they may really be related to the purple light... but it could also be a trap."

Xu Qing pondered and hesitated.

After these days of living in the city ruins, he was deeply aware of those existences that had been polluted by God’s aura and transformed into mutated beasts. Each of them was ferocious and extremely powerful.

But perhaps because the forbidden area was not completely formed, most of these mutated beasts slept during the day.

They wouldn’t wake up unless he entered their sleeping areas, like he did when he obtained the bamboo slip.

Otherwise, if he was careful during the day, he would be fine.

Compared to them, Xu Qing was more wary of living people, because sometimes people's hearts could be more sinister than beasts.

After thinking about it, his eyes slowly turned fierce. Whether or not it was a living person or a trap, he decided that he definitely had to check it out.

But before he went, he had to be fully prepared.

Xu Qing gripped the cultivation bamboo slip in his hand.

The changes in his body over the past few days of cultivation gave him some confidence. Thinking about this, he couldn’t help but recall the contents of the bamboo slip. In addition to the cultivation method, it also mentioned a general introduction to cultivation.

Cultivation was inherited from ancient times, back before God’s fragmented face arrived.

Although there had been some changes, the overall system remained the same.

Cultivation was divided into Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, and Nascent Soul.

The realms beyond Nascent Soul may have been too high; the bamboo slip had no records of them. However, the slip clearly explained the helplessness of cultivators.

God’s aura infected spiritual energy, polluting it, and this pollution was poisonous to all things.

Nobody knew when it started, but at some point, everyone began to call God’s aura “heterogeneity”.

Xu Qing knew very well that the coldness he felt when he cultivated was actually because the spiritual energy he absorbed was mixed with heterogeneity.

Once this heterogeneity accumulated within the body to a certain extent, it would cause the cultivator to mutate. They would either die violently, bursting into bloody mist, or turn into a mutated beast without intelligence.

And in the areas where God opened His eyes, the concentration of heterogeneity would suddenly increase sharply, making this change happen in an instant.

Cultivation was dangerous.

But if you didn’t cultivate... In this Endlands world full of God’s pollution, people generally didn’t live long, and there were many evil diseases. Almost no one could die a good death. It was like living in hell.

Therefore, there was no other choice. Cultivation was the only way.

So for countless years, people improved their methods of cultivation, passing them down from generation to generation.

Nowadays, at the same time as they absorbed the spiritual energy, people would use methods to separate the heterogeneity mixed in their spiritual energy and focus it in a specific location on the body.

This location was called the mutation point.

Therefore, the efficiency of separating out heterogeneity had become an important criterion for separating cultivation methods into good and bad.

And almost all the highly efficient methods were controlled by big forces or families as an important resource. This was actually the same regardless of whether it was before or after God appeared.

Different cultivation methods separated heterogeneity to different degrees, and the place where the mutation point formed would also be different.

But in any case, as long as you cultivated, there would be heterogeneity, and a mutation point would eventually form.

The mutation point was almost impossible to purify. Although the effects of heterogeneity could be mitigated through some medicinal herbs, they could only cure the symptoms and not the root cause.

As for the method to completely purify the mutation point, the bamboo slip also mentioned it.

In the Endlands, in addition to the South Phoenix Continent, there was a more majestic continent called the Ancient Hope Mainland.

That was the place where the human race originated, and although it was also polluted by God’s aura, it seemed that they had found a method to completely purify heterogeneity.

But this method obviously couldn’t be bought with money. Only the extremely privileged could enjoy it.

It was beyond the reach of ordinary cultivators.

As for the countless loose cultivators at the lowest level of society, it was even more impossible for them.

Most of the methods practiced by loose cultivators had a very low degree of separation, so not only was it difficult to cultivate, but the risk of mutation was also greater.

Although cultivation carried such great risks, most people still aspired to become cultivators.

For example, there was Xu Qing. By now, he could already be regarded as a loose cultivator.

According to the information on the bamboo slip, the cultivators of the Endlands were walking on a difficult and dangerous road of no return, just like mortals swimming into the deep sea and heading for the unreachable shore.

Often, before seeing the other side, they simply died of exhaustion.

But Xu Qing, who grew up in a slum, deeply understood that fights or diseases would still cause people to lose their lives all the same.

"So instead of worrying about mutation in the future, it's better to worry about whether I will be alive tomorrow."

Xu Qing murmured, touching the scar on his chest. He looked at the sky outside his little cave.

At the moment, it seemed that it was almost dawn outside, and the roars and shrieks had become much sparser.

"If the rain of blood continues and I still haven’t found the purple light, I should consider leaving and going to other cities to find herbs." Xu Qing looked down at his wound.

Because of the pervasive aura of God and the continuous blood rain, almost all the items in the city were seriously polluted, including medicinal herbs. All kinds of resources were extremely scarce.

Xu Qing raised his hand and pressed it on the scar on his chest, where some blood was seeping out.

With a pale complexion, Xu Qing took a deep breath. He took off the shirt inside the hide coat and bandaged the wound. Relaxing his mind, he silently waited for the dawn.

It didn't take long. The roars and shrieks from the outside world became less and less.

By the time they disappeared completely, Xu Qing saw through the cave entrance that the sky outside was already bright.

Based on his past experience, it was already safe to go out.

But he didn’t leave immediately. He stood up and stretched his somewhat stiff body.

After warming up, Xu Qing removed the stones and debris blocking the entrance, and with the help of the weak light from outside, he opened his leather bag and tidied it up.

He tied a rusty dagger beside his calf and placed the black iron skewer in a convenient position.

There was also a snake head wrapped in sackcloth. He carefully opened it, checked it, and cautiously put it away again.

After doing this, Xu Qing closed his eyes for a few breaths before opening them abruptly again. His eyes were filled with calmness.

He quickly squeezed through the entrance and stopped just outside the cave.

After vigilantly looking around and determining that there were no problems, Xu Qing rushed forward. As the sky gradually brightened, he reached the outside world.

He sped ahead.

Due to the continuous blood rain and dense clouds, the morning sun was barely visible, let alone shining with strong light.

The dim morning light was like a terminally ill old man with clouded eyes, still feeling the bite of the night’s cold.

The old man’s breath turned into a feeble morning wind, bringing with it the smell of death. It was cold, very cold.

If you didn't warm up, your whole body would tremble involuntarily when the wind blew.

But Xu Qing’s body still retained the previous warmth, so he wasn’t affected very much.

He didn’t slow down at all as he ran straight to the area where he saw the suspected living person the previous day.

From a distance, Xu Qing's figure was like a leopard in the ruins of the city, leaping around the walls and crossing the rubble without the slightest pause.

A group of birds accompanied him, flying high in the sky, up where they would be difficult to catch.

While running, Xu Qing looked up at the birds in the sky and licked his lips.

He didn't know why, but after God opened His eyes, when all living being were polluted, although the normal beasts nearly died out, the birds mostly survived.

During the past few days, most of his food came from hunting these birds.

At the same time, although the birds were also trapped in the blood rain, they seemed to instinctively find safe shelters. For example, Xu Qing's underground cave had been discovered by following a bird's trail.

This kind of shelter wasn’t completely safe, but relatively speaking, it seemed that the mutated beasts and eerie existences tended to ignore it.

Xu Qing had discovered two such places during this time. One was his cave, and the other was outside the city lord's mansion.

He swept his gaze across the sky before withdrawing it and locked on to a certain place in the city, getting closer and closer as he sped through the streets.

Soon, Xu Qing approached the area he saw before. However, instead of going straight there, he circled around to find a place with a high vantage point.

After climbing up, he laid down motionlessly. Narrowing his eyes as much as possible, he slowly lowered his head to look over.

With just one glance, Xu Qing’s pupils contracted. He saw the person from yesterday again!

The other party was sitting next to the rubble of a wall, neatly dressed and with normal skin.

The most important thing was... his demeanor, his body, and everything about him were exactly the same as what Xu Qing had seen yesterday.

It was as if the other party hadn’t moved the entire night.

This was extremely unreasonable.

If the other party was alive, it was impossible that they could turn a blind eye to the dangers that existed in the dark night of the city.

If the other party was dead, their uncontaminated corpse was the best food for those mutated beasts, so it was impossible for it to exist until now.

Xu Qing was silent. After thinking about it in his heart, he continued to lay there motionlessly. Growing up in the slums, he didn’t lack patience.

Just like that, under his careful gaze, time passed slowly. Noon passed, and the body remained motionless.

Xu Qing, who had been waiting for three hours, pondered and raised his right hand slightly. He grabbed a stone and flung it at the body leaning on the wall.

The stone shot out with great speed, and its impact force wasn’t small. It struck that uncontaminated figure with a bang.

The figure swayed and fell to the side like a corpse.

And the moment it fell, a ray of purple light appeared on the ground it once sat.

The moment he saw the purple light, Xu Qing's eyes flashed, and his breathing became rapid.

What he had been searching for these days was exactly the purple light that he had seen falling into the city.

At that moment, he forcibly restrained the urge to rush out immediately, instead waiting for a while with impatience. After he was sure that there were no problems, he rushed out.

Xu Qing burst out with all his strength as he ran, and his whole body erupted with the speed of a diving falcon, rushing straight to the purple light.

When he arrived, he quickly grabbed the purple light and shot backward without hesitation.

The whole process was extremely quick. Xu Qing only stopped, panting, after retreating more than thirty meters. He looked at the purple light in his hand.

It was a purple crystal, glittering and translucent, with a dazzling beauty.

Xu Qing's heart beat faster, and when he looked up, he saw the fallen corpse. It seemed that it had lost the protection of the purple light. Its clothes became corroded and its skin turned blue-black.

This scene made Xu Qing instinctively grasp the purple crystal in his hand tighter. He turned around and sprinted back to his cave.

Not long after he began running, Xu Qing's footsteps suddenly stopped, and his expression was a little puzzled.

He lowered his head and untied his hide coat, taking a look at his bound chest.

There was no blood oozing out of the wound. Instead, there was an itchy feeling.

Xu Qing's eyes narrowed, and he tore off the clothes he had wrapped around his wound. When he looked at the wound, his heart shook violently.

He clearly remembered that when he checked that morning, the injury had not healed, and it was even blackening more, but now…

The wound on his chest was mostly healed. There was even scar tissue forming around the edges.

"This..." Xu Qing breathed rapidly, then suddenly looked at the purple crystal in his hand.

Previous Chapter

Table of Contents

Next Chapter