Blood Bodhi

You consumed a specially cooked piece of beast meat. Ingredient grade: Ordinary. Deliciousness grade: Excellent.

Gourmet Cell gained substantial growth. Current level: Lv2 (198/200)

Milestone: Gourmet triggered. You gained the temporary buff Rapid Regeneration (Rare).

Rapid Regeneration (Rare): Gain additional cellular activity. Regeneration speed increased by 30% for 25 minutes.

You consumed a specially cooked piece of beast meat. Ingredient grade: Ordinary. Deliciousness grade: Excellent.

Gourmet Cell gained substantial growth. Gourmet Cell level increased. Current level: Lv3 (22/400)

Strength +1, Constitution +1, Agility +1. Current: Strength: 60; Constitution: 62; Agility: 43

You consumed a specially cooked piece of beast meat. Ingredient grade: Good. Deliciousness grade: Excellent.

Inside the pure-white Cultivation Institute, Bai Cangshu neither altered the terrain nor changed the gravity this time. Instead, he set up a massive pot and cooked a large quantity of purchased beast meat inside it.

This meat came from all sorts of worlds. Some were enormous beasts from the Naruto World, while others were Sea Kings from the One Piece World. Their quality varied, and the effects after eating them differed slightly as well.

Bai Cangshu consciously took note of the ones with better effects.

But what mattered most for improving Gourmet Cell was actually the Chef skill. This ability that could directly alter food into "delicious" on a conceptual level had made Bai Cangshu clearly realize just how powerful it was.

Within the Swirl of the Root, Bai Cangshu had deliberately raised all trainable abilities by a great deal. Only Satsui no Hado, which was difficult to improve without killing powerful enemies, and Gourmet Cell, which relied entirely on eating, remained at relatively low levels.

What Bai Cangshu lacked most right now, aside from raising his Energy attribute to 40 to touch the extreme value and quickly break through the Energy limit, thereby naturally gaining control over the corresponding authorities of several energy types, was attribute points.

Among Bai Cangshu’s current abilities, Kaio-ken, Kirin Armor, Despair Savior, and the like all multiplied his own attributes and combat power. Every single point of attribute improvement brought him several times the benefit.

More importantly, all of these abilities imposed requirements on Bai Cangshu’s capacity to endure. This body of his was a container; the stronger the container, the greater the power it could withstand.

And… the degree to which his Limiter had opened was already nearing a threshold. Bai Cangshu could feel that he was approaching the boundary of his first vessel. He was incredibly close to completely shattering his vessel for the first time and entering an entirely new state.

When he activated both Kirin Armor and Kaio-ken in the Goddess’s Abode and his physical body directly exploded, that had been a sign.

His body was already extremely close to that boundary, that shackle, that restriction holding him at this level of strength. Once it shattered, he would evolve toward a new realm!

Making use of the differing flow of time within the Cultivation Institute, Bai Cangshu devoured large amounts of beast meat in a short period. Then, using the traits of Perfect Individual and the ability Life Return, he forcefully digested it and continued eating.

This unhealthy process quickly slowed the growth of Gourmet Cell. It seemed that even Gourmet Cell could not endure absorbing nutrients at such a rate.

Only then did Bai Cangshu stop. His plan to rapidly raise Gourmet Cell in a short time had failed, and he returned to the public space with a gloomy expression.

However, he received some good news at this point.

Not long after Bai Cangshu returned to his Private Space, Black Butler brought a somewhat nervous-looking reincarnator before him.

Pointing at the girl with short orange hair, he introduced her.

"Codename Orange. Her strength is average, but she says she can trade Blood Bodhi with you."

Orange wore an off-the-shoulder white dress. Her skin was fair, though there were a few freckles across her nose. When creating her Avatar, she had probably deliberately tried to give herself a cute appearance.

She looked timid at the moment, the sort of reincarnator Bai Cangshu would classify as weak at first glance.

Bai Cangshu lifted his chin. The woman immediately stood, then extended her right hand.

Reincarnator DO97736657 has displayed the item Blood Bodhi (Extremely Rare).

Blood Bodhi

Quality: Extremely Rare

Description: A peerless fruit nurtured by the blood of the rare beast Fire Qilin from a certain world. It possesses miraculous effects that heal injuries and increase cultivation.

Effect 1: After consumption, can heal any injury suffered by the body. (Low priority; cannot heal injuries caused by abilities with a priority exceeding one's own.)

Effect 2: After consumption, can completely replenish the body's metabolic consumption, replacing the need to eat.

Effect 3: After consumption, can slightly increase the Energy attribute. This effect can take effect up to three times. (If the energy type is internal force, it will increase it greatly.)

The fruit, faintly glowing with red light, made the circulation of the force across Bai Cangshu’s body smoother simply by appearing in the woman’s palm.

The moment he saw it, Bai Cangshu naturally thought of someone.

As far as he knew, Wind and Cloud World, a mid-to-high-level martial arts world, was also quite valuable. Previously, the vast majority of Wind and Cloud World-related abilities and items had come from Chaos Sage and Crimson Lotus.

Until Crimson Lotus was utterly defeated and Chaos Sage completely monopolized it, there had rarely been news in the Slum Area of other teams producing high-level items and abilities from that world.

"What is your relationship with that guy Red Dust?"

As Bai Cangshu spoke, the woman was visibly startled. Black Butler merely adjusted his glasses. Naturally, he would not bring just any nobody before Mercenary Tao. Even he could tell that this woman’s absolute strength was far from impressive.

An item like Blood Bodhi was basically impossible for a low-level reincarnator to possess for long. Even if they were lucky enough to obtain one, most would never sell it.

Whether kept as a life-saving miracle medicine for times of crisis, or used after finding an internal cultivation ability to rapidly increase one’s Energy attribute, it was a powerful item that was impossible to give up.

The lower a reincarnator’s level, the less likely they were to relinquish it.

Therefore, this woman’s Blood Bodhi must have been given to her by someone else.

Crimson Lotus had already been defeated, and Chaos Sage’s people had been nearly wiped out by Mercenary Tao. At present, the only person who could still bring out such a thing for trade was someone Black Butler could guess.

Black Butler felt that if he could think of it, Mercenary Tao could not possibly fail to know.

The woman clearly had not expected this. She instinctively looked around, as though worried that others might be eavesdropping. That reaction made Bai Cangshu nearly unable to tolerate her stupidity.

"This is the Space. No one can spy on you here unless… you signed some kind of Spatial Contract."

The woman hurriedly waved her hands.

"No, no… I didn’t sign one…"

"So it’s Red Dust. Ha~ That idiot got himself in trouble again?!"

Bai Cangshu raised his brows and smiled mockingly. Red Dust was not weak. Judging purely by energy intensity, among the reincarnators Bai Cangshu had encountered so far, no one besides Mahakala possessed such strength.

But his abilities were extremely one-dimensional, as though he were some antiquated relic still immersed in the Wuxia world of more than a decade ago. Bai Cangshu had not sensed any abilities beyond martial arts from him.

Such an ability build had considerable flaws and extremely narrow compatibility. It was very easy for him to be ambushed and defeated by all kinds of strange abilities.

When he and Bai Cangshu had been defeated by Millennium Worm’s Domain Expansion that day, Bai Cangshu realized this and had already begun deliberately compensating for his own "resistance."

But Red Dust apparently had not realized it.

Orange then told Bai Cangshu that Red Dust had been defeated by a reincarnator codenamed Mad King and controlled through some kind of authority. She hoped to use this Blood Bodhi as payment in exchange for Bai Cangshu’s help in rescuing Red Dust.

Bai Cangshu was about to agree when Black Butler immediately spoke up.

"Wait, there’s a problem with this deal!"

Black Butler’s expression turned grave as he looked at Bai Cangshu and said,

"Wait, Mercenary Tao. That Mad King is not simple…"

"This deal cannot be made!"