Stairway of Spirit and Flesh (3K)

"I’m sorry, but His Excellency Mercenary Tao does not seem to be willing to accept negotiations with you for the time being."

Jin Ruohai shook his head at the group before him. They were the high-tier Reincarnators of Blackwater, the most renowned mercenary Reincarnator gathering in the East District.

They had already confirmed that after that battle, the new president, Death Sword Thought Silk, had disappeared, most likely just as the rumors claimed.

Mahakala, One Thought Silk, and Su Qingqiu had all been defeated by Mercenary Tao. Only out of respect for Great Sun of Finality had they not been killed.

Instead, they had all become Mercenary Tao’s captives.

Someone had confirmed that Mu Yu, president of Paradise of the Dead, had contacted Mercenary Tao through Black Butler. She most likely intended to ransom back The Heaven Qingqiu.

No matter how exorbitant the price, a living top-tier Reincarnator was always worth it.

Especially for an elite gathering like Paradise of the Dead. Losing one of its figurehead powerhouses would likely make it the target of other gatherings soon enough.

Blackwater was no different. For a gathering like theirs, which specialized in accepting all kinds of mercenary missions for extra profit, a strong leader was essential.

Several of them frowned, beginning to wonder whether seeking out Jin Ruohai had been a mistake.

Although Mercenary Tao had indeed interacted with Jin Ruohai before, it was now clear that Jin Ruohai was nowhere near as familiar with Mercenary Tao as Black Butler was.

Just as they were about to leave, they suddenly received a notification. Their faces filled with shock.

The next moment, when they returned to their Team Space, they saw a completely unharmed One Thought Silk standing in the team plaza.

Blackwater’s Team Space was set up as a massive plaza. The sky was dim, and a sun seemed to be undergoing a total eclipse. The heavens were neither fully dark nor fully bright, creating a remarkably magnificent sight.

"Boss, you…"

Faced with their baffled gazes, One Thought Silk spread her hands and shrugged.

"No helping it. To stay alive, I sold Blackwater."

"You sold it?!"

Their eyelids twitched, and their voices instantly rose.

One Thought Silk, however, lazily leaned against a stone pillar in the middle of the plaza and said matter-of-factly, "Yeah. Did you think that guy would let me go otherwise?"

Their expressions darkened further. After exchanging glances, they said coldly, "Death Sword, didn’t you tell Mercenary Tao that Blackwater has always been a loose gathering? Even if you are the current president, you have no right to decide the fate of anyone else."

One Thought Silk raised her eyelids and saw that the speaker was Shadow Dance Mulge, an assassin-type Reincarnator with dark skin and a grayish-white cloak wrapped around her entire body.

The corner of her lips twitched. Her laziness gradually faded, while an invisible aura of death grew increasingly intense. As the controller of the gathering, she could slightly alter some of the rules within the Team Space. Though they still could not kill one another, it was not difficult for her to let her killing intent spill out.

Mulge sensed it at once. Before any of them could speak, the woman’s icy voice rang out.

"That was Blackwater in the past. From now on, Blackwater will be managed differently. Under my… mm, under His Excellency Mercenary Tao’s rule, I will issue kill orders against anyone who refuses to obey commands."

One Thought Silk brushed aside the dark-purple hair by her ear, a cruel killing intent curling over her lips.

"I will carry them out personally."

One Thought Silk could still remember the chilling, deathly stillness of Mercenary Tao’s fingers sliding between her flesh. He was absolutely a man countless times crueler than she was.

She did not want to die. She wanted to live. For that purpose, she could give up everything.

Her freedom, her dignity—none of it mattered.

What were the principles of some Blackwater gathering, or the lives of these other members, compared to her own survival?

She had used such things as bargaining chips to keep herself from temporarily becoming a Scarlet Drop Card displayed in that stall.

As it happened, Mercenary Tao seemed to need manpower at the moment. His Paradise needed to be rebuilt, and for more convenient hunting in the future, he needed many people to spread Paradise’s reputation…

One Thought Silk licked her lips, and there was no warmth left in her eyes.

Mulge’s entire body turned icy. Death Sword Thought Silk had risen to become Blackwater’s leader so quickly because she was exceptionally good at killing!

The others understood this as well. Their minds immediately tightened as they fell into hesitation.

Bodhi

Quality: World's Rare Treasure

Description: Said to be the fruit condensed from Bodhi that grew at the site where Bodhidharma passed away. It possesses the effects of comprehending the principles of the world and mastering techniques.

Effect 1: Store it on your person. The improvement speed of Martial Arts Specialization and abilities during training increases by 50%.

Effect 2: Consume Bodhi to receive the infusion of wisdom from past lives. Cultivation abilities and specialization levels will be forcibly increased by 1 level. There is a small chance of obtaining an additional trait, and an extremely small chance of obtaining the incomplete inheritance martial art Divine Palm of Tathagata (S).

It was a bead emitting a faint glow, covered in intricate and dense patterns. This was far more precious than the Bodhi Leaf Red Dust had previously traded to Bai Cangshu.

Not only did it not need to be held in the mouth and consumed during use, it could continuously provide training bonuses simply by being carried on one’s person. Effect 2 was even more extraordinarily suited to Bai Cangshu’s current needs.

The phrase "forcibly increased by 1 level" had been carefully marked in scarlet text by the Space, as though reminding Reincarnators of just how extraordinary this effect was.

As a Martial Artist who had now reached the Peak of Technique, Bai Cangshu naturally understood the true value of this effect.

Raising a specialization or ability from Lv1 to Lv2 and raising one from Lv6 to Lv7 were both merely an increase of one level, but their effects and difficulty were worlds apart.

Moreover, the description was clearly reminding Reincarnators that the true value allowing this World’s Rare Treasure-grade item to touch upon the worth of a World’s Rare Treasure lay in breaking through the limits of level 9, breaking through the Peak of Technique, and entering the realm beyond.

That was why Bai Cangshu had agreed without hesitation to let that Virtue Reincarnator go. Otherwise, how could the greedy Bai Cangshu have so easily released prey already in his grasp?

To be honest, Bai Cangshu very much wanted to swallow this Bodhi directly and use the wisdom of past lives to immediately raise his Martial Arts Mastery to Lv10, entering that so-called transcendent realm.

In many East Xia settings, this process was described as "From Technique to Dao." In works such as Fate, it was described as refined skill touching upon the domain of magic.

But Bai Cangshu ultimately suppressed that impulse. The most efficient way to use Bodhi was naturally to wear it for high-speed training in ordinary times, then consume it directly when battle demanded it, instantly entering the Lv10 realm and turning the battle around.

What was more, Bai Cangshu had already vaguely touched upon the key to another powerful system of strength.

During his battle with those three, he had felt the existence of Earth’s magnetic field. The energy system of Current Propulsion already possessed the potential to enter Magnetic Field Rotation!

Bai Cangshu put Bodhi into his Backpack. After some thought, he crushed the Scarlet Drop Cards in his hand one by one.

In order to bring his Agility and Spirit attributes up as soon as possible, he began selectively using Scarlet Cards from Reincarnators of those types.

He remembered that most of the Reincarnators sent by the Finality Empire had been spellcasters.

You opened a Scarlet Drop Card

...

You selected Attribute Extraction

Spirit +6, current: 47

You selected Bloodline Extraction

Extraction failed

You selected Ability Extraction

You obtained Ability Scroll Monastery Technique Lv4 (B+)

You opened a Scarlet Drop Card

You selected Attribute Extraction

Agility +6, current: 42

You selected Bloodline Extraction

Extraction failed

You selected Ability Extraction

You obtained Ability Scroll Blade Asura Lv4 (A-)

...

Bai Cangshu’s gains from this round of extraction were exceptionally generous. Most of those who had come to kill him were elite-grade Reincarnators or above, so not only were their attributes relatively high, the ability extraction results were also quite pleasing.

What disappointed Bai Cangshu somewhat was that aside from the woman who used One Blade Asura, there were no other Reincarnators specialized in Agility.

After the round of extractions, his Spirit attribute had surged, and his Constitution had increased somewhat as well. Yet his Agility still had not broken through the threshold of 50.

Attributes: Strength 51; Constitution 57; Agility 42; Spirit 59

At the same time, he had obtained a batch of Lv4 Ability Scrolls that could be sold off.

Among those Ability Scrolls, the only one Bai Cangshu looked at for a while longer was One Blade Asura.

One Blade Asura (A-)—Forcibly concentrates all magic power, compressing the soul and consuming lifespan as the price to greatly enhance physical abilities. A Blade Technique supreme art. (Current maximum enhancement: 4 times.) Duration: one minute.

In Bai Cangshu’s view, this ability could probably be considered a budget version of Kaio-ken. It was likewise an ability that temporarily granted explosive enhancement, but it had weaknesses such as consuming the soul, having a short duration, and only enhancing physical abilities.

Still, for body-technique Reincarnators—especially those on the body-technique or swordsmanship paths who used magic power to build their enhancement systems—it could still be considered a powerful supreme art.

Bai Cangshu tapped his arm a few times. One Thought Silk had not yet sent word back from Blackwater. Gathering those people would probably take some effort. Bai Cangshu did not mind killing a few more, but time was tight.

Furthermore, An Zhiyuan and Azure Sky’s boss had jointly imposed a restriction on him, forbidding the use of destructive power above Fierce-tier outside Myanmar.

This also affected Bai Cangshu’s hunting range.

Naturally, Bai Cangshu would not fully comply with such a requirement, but neither would he travel thousands of miles for prey as insignificant as a fly’s leg.

He intended to run Paradise as a truly free and chaotic paradise for Reincarnators, while he himself would select the most perfect prey from within and feast regularly.

Bai Cangshu rose and turned the doorknob. He had yet to receive the ransom sent by Great Sun of Finality. For now, he planned to see what significance this so-called Stairway of Spirit and Flesh he had newly unlocked truly held.

Special Reincarnator Ex051, it has been detected that you have fulfilled the climbing conditions for the Stairway of Spirit and Flesh. Please proceed to the Rank Management Office for inquiries.

This was the special notification he had seen after returning from the Swirl of the Root. Having detected the movements of the Kill Bai Alliance, Bai Cangshu had returned to reality to fight and had not yet had time to investigate it.

"Ah!"

"It’s… him."

"It’s His Excellency Mercenary Tao…"

As the true "celebrity" of Infinite Dimensional Space’s East District, Mercenary Tao was at the height of his fame. At this moment, his reputation even surpassed those Supreme Experts whom few people had ever seen.

He had become the symbol of a top-tier Reincarnator in the hearts of many low-level Reincarnators.

After all, defeating multiple top-tier Reincarnators at Title-level and above by himself was strength more than sufficient to earn the honorific "His Excellency."

With his hands behind his back, Bai Cangshu drifted through the Slum Area and entered the Rank Management Office directly.

Knight Sister, who was wiping a sharp sword, noticed a new Reincarnator entering. She turned around, about to greet him with a smile, but froze for a moment before revealing a bright, energetic grin.

"Impressive. You found another stairway…"

Bai Cangshu also raised his right hand. Beneath that ring of purple Trait-Forging Rings, a dim meridian could vaguely be seen, as though it circulated through his entire body and extended deep within.

"Miss Knight, can you tell me what the stairways mean now?"