The second commander
When Li Jing arrived at the second level of the cave, he noticed that, contrary to the first level that looked like a long corridor, this level looked like a very large circular room with many stalagmites, stalactites, and cavities on the walls.
At the center of the place, he saw a tall and seductive woman who seemed to be in her thirties with a long whip covered with metal spikes in her right hand. She was wearing a black leather armor that revealed a lot of her skin and a belt around her waist that contained a lot of throwing knives.
This woman was obviously the second commander of the Black Tiger: Yang Rong.
Behind Yang Rong were standing several men and women who looked at her with reverence and adoration.
"Mistress Rong, let me take care of this kid for you!" Exclaimed one of the women.
"No, I will be the one who kills him for Mistress Rong!" Retorted a man.
"Silence!" Said Yang Rong, raising her left hand. Then, she looked a Li Jing and smiled before saying: "Since you are here, it means that you killed Long Yu. This good for nothing can't even take care of a kid in the sixth level of the Qi Gathering realm…"
Li Jing looked at her but didn't say anything. He already decided that he would kill her as fast as possible. Not because he was afraid of her poison but because he knew thanks to the web novel that she possessed a secret poisonous artifact. He wanted to kill her before she could use it so he could obtain it.
This artifact was known as the Poison Spreader Disk and could poison and kill a small town of cultivators in only a few minutes!
In the web novel, Yang Rong used it as her last resort to kill Teng Fen but he immediately recognized the poison and knew how to neutralize it…
Li Jing needed to save his Qi for his battles against the other two commanders and their leader. Therefore, he took out his Lightning-flame Spirit Daggers and rushed towards Yang Rong. She was only in the second level of the Foundation Establishment realm so her strength was far inferior to Li Jing's strength.
"Mistress!"
Just as Li Jing was about to stab her, a man appeared in front of her and took the hit for his mistress, killing him on the spot.
[Host has killed a cultivator in the Qi Gathering realm: XP + 150.]
Yang Rong jump backward and looked angrily at Li Jing.
"You… You need to be disciplined!" She said, gritting her teeth.
She swung her whip powerfully towards Li Jing and smiled viciously. The metal spikes that covered her whip were all poisonous so she just needed to scratch him and he would die.
Li Jing quickly took out his daggers from the dead man's body and immediately countered the whip with them.
Shatter!
Upon contact with the daggers, the metallic whip immediately shattered! It was because the difference in quality between the two weapons was too high. The whip was only a Mortal-grade weapon while the daggers were Sky-grade weapons.
Because her whip broke, Yang Rong lost her balance momentarily and Li Jing took this opportunity to use his Power Slash technique, aiming for her head.
Two crescent moons of Lightning Qi and Fire Qi quickly flew towards her head and because Yang Rong didn't have enough time to dodge them completely, she had to sacrifice her left shoulder to avoid being beheaded.
Blood flowed from Yang Rong's shoulder as she looked at Li Jing with a mix of anger, pain, and fear. She was not good at hand-to-hand combat, her only advantage was her poisoned weapons.
She threw him several poisoned knives but Li Jing effortlessly deflected them all. However, among the knives that she was throwing, there were also tiny, almost invisible poison needles that Li Jing couldn't deflect. Thankfully, his body was strong enough so these needles couldn't pierce through it. Therefore, he ignored them and rushed towards Yang Rong.
Yang Rong widened her eyes, she didn't understand why her needles were ineffective on Li Jing!
Seeing that their mistress was in difficulty, many of her subordinates interposed by standing in front of her and suggested to let them fight for her.
"Mistress, let us help you!"
Hearing this, Yang Rong smiled. She will let her subordinates sacrifice their lives for her while she would prepare her secret weapon, the Poison Spreader Disk. She knew she had no chance against Li Jing and she preferred to die rather than to ask for help from the old man of the third level…
"Alright, take care of him." She said.
Li Jing knew exactly what she was planning to do and preferred to spend more Qi rather than letting her using her artifact.
"Kill Yourself!" He ordered, using his Dark Command.
Yang Rong's eyes suddenly became lifeless. She took out one of her knives and sliced her own throat.
[Host has killed a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment realm: XP + 350.]
"What?! Mistress, why did you kill yourself?"
"Mistress, why?"
None of them understood why she obeyed the order of the young boy in front of them. Only knowledgeable people knew about Dark Qi since most of its practitioners died a long time ago.
"Let's kill him, we must avenge our mistress."
"B-but we have no chance against him…"
"You coward! We must avenge our mistress or join her in death."
After hearing that, the sixteen men and women all rushed towards Li Jing. Their decision suited him well, at least he wouldn't have to chase them to kill them all.
In only a few seconds, Li Jing slaughtered them all. Their attacks couldn't pierce his body and with his daggers, he didn't need more than one slash to kill them.
[Host has killed 16 cultivators in the Qi Gathering realm: XP + 2400.]
Li Jing was now standing in the middle of many corpses, his clothes were covered in blood, and the whole place was silent since no one else was alive.
'I still can't believe the speed at which I got used to killing human beings…' He thought, sighing.
Now, that this level was clean, he started absorbing the souls of the people he killed.
[Host has absorbed the soul of 17 cultivators in the Qi Gathering realm: Strength + 85 Jin, Soul Strength + 85.]
[Host has absorbed the soul of a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment realm: Strength + 50 Jin, Soul Strength + 10.]
Li Jing analyzed the memories of these people… Some of them had little knowledge in alchemy so he decided to keep these memories. As for Yang Rong, she didn't know any Martial technique but she possessed various interesting knowledge like creating poisons and antidotes, creating hidden weapons, launching sneak attacks, and throwing knives and needles.
Once he finished selecting the memories he would keep, Li Jing searched Yang Rong and the people on the ground.
In her spatial ring, he found the famous Poison Spreader Disk, around 3000 Spirit Stones, hundreds of needles and throwing knives, many poisonous spiritual plants, some poison recipes, and a Yellow-grade alchemist cauldron.
Of course, Li Jing didn't plan to use the Poison Spreader Disk to massively kill people, he would only keep it as a last resort weapon, a kind of trump card.
Unfortunately, Yang Rong's whip was broken so it wasn't worth anything anymore and the dead people around her didn't have anything interesting on them except for some Spirit Stones, Qi Gathering Pills, and normal weapons…
'Status.' He thought, after he stored all the items in his blood ring.
[----------STATUS---------
Experience Points (XP): 43366
XP / hour: 84
Strength: 40457 Jin
Soul Strength: 562
Qi cultivation realm: Foundation Establishment I (XP: 0/40000)
Body cultivation realm: Skin Refining VIII (XP: 0/30000)
Lifespan: 1250 Years
Talent: A-grade
Bloodlines: [Soul Devourer Evil Metallic Boar], [Minor Thunder Dragon]
Perks: [Appraisal], [Full Recovery], [Exchange]
Elemental affinities: [Lightning], [Dark]
Cultivation methods: [Li clan's method], [Unholy Dark Art]
Martial techniques: [Elusive Smoke Steps], [Instant Flash Step], [Hammer Fist], [Dark Command], [Power Slash], [Shield of the Four Truths], [Mystical Blazing Palm], [Quick Sword Draw]
Bloodline skills: [Heavenly Thunder Breath], [Dragon's Talent]
--------------------------]
Seeing his status screen made Li Jing smile, the speed at which he progressed was mind-boggling!
Next, he took out a Qi Replenishing Pill and swallowed it. This pill would restore twenty percent of his Qi reserve but was unfortunately only effective once every two hours…
He was now ready to go to the third level and only needed to kill two commanders and their chief to finally reach his goal.