Li Wei quickly put his hands over Zhao Tian's mouth and put a knife on his throat, only letting him breathe slightly.
"Hand over the beast core."
Zhao Tian's eyes bulged as he tried to look backwards to look at him, but at this moment, he had already depleted all his qi to activate the explosion talisman. He quietly takes the beast core out of his spirit bag.
"Drop it on the floor."
Zhao Tian drops it onto the wet soil as Li Wei quietly puts it into his pouch.
They stayed in that position for about twenty more minutes until the bear walked to a distance not noticeable to the eye.
Finally, he had let go of his hand from Zhao Tian's mouth as he gasped heavily.
"Y-you...why are you here..." he said, but the knife still stuck to his throat.
Zhao Tian had just spoken when the system's interface appeared in front of him.
[Karmic Debt Recorded]
Debtor: Zhao Tian
Debt Type: Life-saving grace
Debt Level: Major
Li Wei gazed at the message.
A new interface came up below it.
Collection Option Available
Zhao Tian still looked at him, bewildered.
He looked at the system interface instead. The option for collecting the debt was still there, but there was something new below it.
Warning: Immediate Collection May Trigger Fate Collapse
Li Wei stared at the warning for a moment.
Under normal circumstances, harvesting fate at such a moment would be wasteful. Once fate collapsed, much of its value would be lost. Waiting until Zhao Tian's destiny stabilized would give far greater benefits.
But this situation was different.
The beast core sitting inside his pouch contained an immense amount of spiritual energy. A single second-rank spirit beast core was equivalent to more than a hundred spirit stones. With it, Zhao Tian could quickly restore his qi and recover his strength once he returned to the sect.
If that happened, Zhao Tian would not stay silent.
Li Wei had just robbed him of the mission reward and threatened him with a knife. Once Zhao Tian recovered, reporting this incident to the elders would be the first thing he did. At that point, Li Wei would have to deal not only with Zhao Tian, but with the entire sect's investigation. Maybe he would be on the execution platform once again.
That outcome was unacceptable.
Harvesting now might waste part of the fate, but it solves two problems at once.
It would repair his dantian…and remove the only witness.
With that thought settled, Li Wei pressed the option.
[Fate Harvest]
Purple threads appeared out of Zhao Tian's body. The threads of disciples with white or grey fate were as thick as a hair's breadth, but the purple thread was as thick as a rope.
As the purple thread entered his body, a warmth spread across his entire body, his dantian was being repaired.
Meanwhile, Zhao Tian's face twisted with discomfort, his body trembled, the purple thread turned blue, then weakened more until it was white.
Zhao Tian felt a sharp pain in his dantian, as if something has been ripped out from him.
"What…what did you—"
His voice stopped.
The blade at his throat pressed deeper.
Zhao Tian finally understood something was wrong.
Very wrong.
His breathing grew heavier. The weakness spreading through his body was not just exhaustion from the talisman. It felt like something fundamental had disappeared.
"Li Wei…" Zhao Tian said hoarsely.
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"You…"
Before he could finish speaking, Li Wei moved.
A thin line of red appeared on his throat, after a momentary silence, blood started flowing out of his neck. Zhao Tian looked at the blood in disbelief. He turned back to speak, but no words would come out.
Li Wei held his hand against Zhao Tian's mouth once again, and pinned him against the ground to stop any noise.
The blade moved once more, this time driving straight into the space between Zhao Tian's ribs.
The knife pierced the heart.
Zhao Tian's body trembled violently for a moment before the strength left his limbs.
His fingers dug into the soil.
Then they stopped moving.
His face was moist due to the tears flowed from his eyes onto the soil, blood trickled from his sides onto the ground.
Zhao Tian, the outer sect genius, was dead.
The forest around him remained quiet.
The injured bear had long since gone deeper into the valley.
After a few minutes passed, Li Wei leaned back slightly against the base of a tree.
His clothes were stained with blood.
The knife still rested loosely in his hand.
Then the system interface appeared again.
[Fate Harvest Completed]
High-grade fate successfully absorbed.
Fate Quality: Purple
Harvest Efficiency: 72%
Under the UI two more screens popped up
[Dantian Repair Progress: 63%]
[Host Cultivation Stability Increased]
[Host Status Analysis]
Cultivation: Body Tempering 6th stage
Dantian Integrity: 63% (Stabilizing)
Meridian Stability: 78%
Cultivation Bottlenect: Mid-Foundation Establishment
Qi Circulation Efficiency: 58%
Li Wei remained seated against the tree, quietly observing the changes within his body.
The difference was obvious.
The qi circulating through his meridians was smoother, no longer dispersing the moment it reached his core. The weakness that had lingered inside his body since the destruction of his dantian was slowly disappearing.
For the first time since the execution plaza, true qi began to gather in his dantian again.
Li Wei glanced down at the corpse lying beside him.
Zhao Tian's eyes were still open, staring blankly at the canopy above.
The outer sect genius.
Dead in a nameless valley.
Several disciples had already scattered during the attack. At least one had died in front of the beast.
When they returned to the sect, the story would spread quickly.
And once Zhao Tian's body was found…
The elders were sure to investigate.
Li Wei slowly stood up.
The blood on his clothes had already begun drying in the cold forest air.
He looked down at Zhao Tian's corpse for a moment before crouching beside it.
His hands moved quickly.
The spirit pouch.
The weapon.
Everything useful was taken out .
Another message appeared on the system interface.
[New Passive Ability Unlocked]
Fate Perception
Li Wei paused slightly.
But he did not examine it yet.
The forest around him remained silent.
Somewhere deeper in the valley, the injured bear roared again.
Li Wei closed the interface.
This place would not remain safe for long.
Then he began dragging Zhao Tian's body toward the edge of the clearing.
He took his body near a cliff and dropped it down along with his spirit pouch and weapons, he only kept a few spirit stones which he could absorb.
Li Wei stood at the edge of the cliff for a moment, watching the darkness below swallow Zhao Tian's body.
No sound came from below.
If the fall had not ripped apart his body, which was unlikely, the spirit beasts roaming the valley floor eventually would.
Either way, Zhao Tian's corpse would not remain intact for long.
Li Wei turned around and returned to the place where he hid with Zhao Tian.
The ground was still soaked with blood.
There were signs of struggle everywhere. Broken branches. Torn soil. Deep gouges left by the his fingers.
He quickly covered all that up with soil and made it seem like a natural area.
He grabbed Zhao Tian's sword and slashed several nearby trees, leaving deep claw-like marks across the bark. Then he dragged the corpse of the dead disciple closer to the center of the clearing, making it appear as if the two had fought side by side before being overwhelmed.
He scattered the remaining blood with handfuls of wet soil.
From a distance, the scene now looked like the aftermath of a chaotic battle with a powerful spirit beast.
Li Wei threw the sword down beside the clearing.
If the sect investigators eventually found it, they would assume Zhao Tian had died in the fight.
Li Wei finally stepped back and examined the clearing one last time.
There was nothing more to do.
The valley wind rustled through the branches above.
The forest was quiet again.
Then Li Wei closed his eyes.
Slowly, he began circulating the qi within his body.
The difference was immediate.
Before the fate harvest, guiding spiritual energy through his meridians had felt like forcing water through cracked pipes. The qi would scatter the moment it reached his dantian.
Now the flow was smooth.
The qi gathered naturally inside his abdomen.
The repaired structure of his dantian slowly rotated, drawing in the surrounding qi from the environment.
Li Wei opened his eyes.
A faint glow appeared around his fingertips.
Body Tempering, Sixth Stage.
Even without spirit stones, his cultivation speed had already improved.
If he had the proper resources, reaching Qi Gathering was just a matter of time.
At that moment, the system interface flickered again.
A new panel appeared.
[Fate Perception Activated]
Passive Ability Online
He focused his attention onto the screen.
The world around him changed.
Faint threads began appearing in the forest.
Thin grey lines drifted above the small animals hiding among the bushes.
White threads hovered around distant cultivators further up the valley.
Each thread pulsed slowly, like strands of light connecting living beings to their unseen destinies.
Li Wei's gaze shifted across the forest.
For a moment, he simply observed.
Then he noticed something unusual.
Far away, near the direction of the sect—
A faint blue thread flickered briefly before disappearing behind the trees.
Li Wei narrowed his eyes.
Blue fate.
Someone with strong destiny was nearby.
The thread vanished before he could focus on it further.
The system interface dimmed again.
Li Wei exhaled slowly.
The ability would require time to understand.
But one thing was certain.
The world looked very different now.
He could see the threads of fate itself.
Li Wei turned away from the clearing.
The sun had already climbed high above the mountains.
If he stayed here any longer, someone might discover the valley.
Without another glance behind him, he took out a new pair of robes from his spirit pouch and changed into it, then he began walking back toward the Azure Cloud Sect.
Behind him, the forest slowly swallowed the clearing.
And somewhere deeper in the valley—
The injured bear roared again.
