Chapter 497: Cang Xu’s Bloodline
White Hair Trench.
Radiance flooded the entire undersea valley, illuminating everyone’s features with stark clarity.
Jian Gui and the others wore solemn expressions, their gazes fixed upon Cang Xu and Ku Feng.
Cang Xu and Ku Feng knelt on the ground, surrounded by a sea of believers.
The fishmen of the Da Ji Clan remained silent, yet the glances they cast toward Cang Xu burned with seething hatred!
If looks could kill, Cang Xu would have been slain a hundred times over by the Da Ji Clan’s fishmen.
After all, he was the enemy responsible for the annihilation of their entire clan.
This was a clan-annihilating grudge!
“Once we reach the Mother Nest, even if the saint beast kills me, I'll kill you first!” Many fishmen of the Da Ji Clan harbored this thought.
Many had even conspired beforehand to join forces and eliminate Cang Xu!
Ku Feng, kneeling beside Cang Xu, gave a bitter smile, “Looks like we'll face a tough battle first thing when we reach the Ocean Mother Nest.”
Cang Xu reassured him: "Rest easy. Compared to the battle at the Underworld River, this won't be nearly as perilous. Most fishmen haven't experienced teleportation before. We'll react faster than they do. If we move in on the saint beast proactively, we still have a chance."
After saying this, Cang Xu glanced toward Qing Xin.
Standing at a distance, Qing Xin sensed the fishmen's hostility toward Cang Xu. She had no interest whatsoever in drawing closer to him.
Cang Xu's gaze flickered slightly before shifting away.
Approaching Qing Xin now would only expose their connection, drawing calamity upon her.
As before, the magic formation hummed with activity, divine scripts and magic runes intertwining.
Hordes of sea beasts were absorbed by the golden altar, their flesh and blood vanishing as bones fell to the ground, strengthening the altar's structure.
Spatial ripples surged, transporting all the surrounding believers into the Ocean Mother Nest.
“We're in!” The fishmen of the Da Ji Clan snapped to attention, scanning their surroundings.
“Found Xu Jia! Charge together!”
“He's right there, don't run!”
“Trying to escape to the saint beast? That's suicide.”
“You harmed our Da Ji Clan! We'll tear you apart limb by limb!”
The Da Ji Clan's fishmen tore “Cang Xu” to shreds, devouring him piece by piece, their hatred for him palpable.
Yet they didn't know this was all an illusion.
What represented Cang Xu was merely an alchemy ingredient aboard the Deep Sea Monster Fish, the corpse of a giant sea creature, but enchanted with the Deceptive Disguise spell.
The real Cang Xu had been swallowed whole by the Rubber Swallower and carried into the Deep Sea Monster Fish.
Ku Feng and Qing Xin suffered the same fate.
Both silver levels were subjected to double seals, allowing the Rubber Swallower to devour them whole with effortless ease.
Cang Xu raced against time. Emerging from the Rubber Swallower's belly, he scrambled through the corridor, rushing into the meditation chamber.
The metal door slid open. The fishman youngster had already completed his hybrid transformation.
Before Cang Xu stood the fishman youngster, his chest and back twisted with grotesque patterns forming two distinct ghostly faces.
It was through this Ghostface Fish bloodline that the youngster possessed the qualification to refine and wield undead magic power.
“Commander!” Cang Xu bowed, his expression tinged with excitement and anticipation.
The fishman youngster nodded slightly. Once Cang Xu entered the meditation chamber and the metal door closed behind him, the youngster pointed a finger at him.
Necromancy - Undead Bloodline Detection Spell!
The spell drained his magic power reserves voraciously, nearly depleting the iron level magic pool.
The Undead Bloodline Detection Spell was silver level, consuming magic power at the standard rate for such spells.
The fishman youngster could cast it independently solely due to his bloodline talent, granting him silver level magic power reserves even at iron level.
Even so, his spellcasting success rate hovered around 30%.
Numerous factors influenced spell release – magic power was only one aspect, alongside magic model construction and more.
This time, perhaps due to his prolonged preparation, the success rate had slightly improved. Thus, his first attempt succeeded.
A streak of gray light erupted from the fishman youngster's fingertips.
The light was not dazzling, traveling in a straight line with laser-like speed as it struck Cang Xu's body.
His body trembled violently as his temperature soared, as if plunged into boiling water.
Soon, wisps of gray mist began to rise from his skin.
The mist swirled and thickened, eventually coalescing into a massive sphere that completely enveloped Cang Xu. A potent undead aura radiated outward in all directions.
The fishman youngster undid the Bloodcore's hybrid transformation and began waiting patiently.
Within the thick gray mist, Cang Xu was the first to sense a change.
His toes began to itch - or more accurately, his bones itched.
The itching grew worse!
Within mere seconds, the sensation intensified to the point where Cang Xu's expression changed. Knowing Cang Xu was no ordinary being, as an undead entity, it was rare for him to experience such intense sensations of life.
Cang Xu couldn't help but fidget his toes. Just as he bent down to scratch them, excruciating pain erupted.
This agony didn't replace the previous itch; it felt as though his ten itchy toes had pierced through his flesh and skin, burrowing straight out!
Pain and itching, both at once!
Cang Xu's body shook violently, nearly toppling him over.
At that very moment, the fishman youngster outside the gray mist saw it, a magic image forming on the mist's surface.
A bone claw gradually materialized, growing larger and larger.
The claw slammed into the ground. The razor-sharp tips of its claws pierced the earth's surface, then relentlessly extended and spread deeper into the ground.
“It's the Twisted Withered Claw bloodline!” the fishman youngster recognized it instantly.
Ever since he had received the intermediate soul aspect inheritance from Cang Xu, he possessed extensive knowledge about undead lifeforms.
The fishman youngster's expression remained impassive, showing no excitement.
Because the Twisted Withered Claw bloodline was merely bronze level.
“Cang Xu must possess stronger bloodlines!”
The fishman youngster was utterly certain.
It was self-evident.
Cang Xu had already reached the iron level. If he possessed only the Twisted Withered Claw bloodline, he could never transcend bronze to reach iron level.
On the surface of the gray mist, the sprawling white bone claws suddenly shattered.
The gray mist shifted ceaselessly, beginning its transformation anew.
On Cang Xu's body, the tingling in his toes vanished, and the pain in his feet subsided. Instead, agony surged through his neck.
This wasn't the dull ache of overworked muscles, but a wrenching pain.
It felt as if someone were violently twisting his head, forcing it to spin relentlessly.
In this process, his neck, the link between head and torso, twisted like a rope being violently coiled into a spiral.
Not only twisted, but his head was also being yanked upward, causing his neck to stretch relentlessly.
Cang Xu felt like a toy fallen into the hands of a giant child. The brutal giant child was preparing to yank his head clean off his body.
He instinctively clutched his own head and pressed down hard, trying to counter the pulling force.
This was entirely his illusion!
Yet the excruciating pain was all too real, making Cang Xu gasp sharply.
At the same moment, a magic vision manifested once more upon the surface of the gray mist.
It was a wailing humanoid ghost. The most striking feature of the ghost was its head, severed from its body. The neck connecting head and torso was thin and elongated, resembling a twisted, spiraled rope.
“Hanged Ghost bloodline... This bloodline is excellent; it is gold level.” The fishman youngster's eyes glowed faintly.
But in the next instant, the magic image shifted again!
The Hanged Ghost, which had swayed like willow branches in the wind, gradually froze rigid, as if struck by a petrifying spell.
Moreover, the Hanged Ghost was steadily shrinking.
Around it appeared one, two, three... a dozen... dozens... hundreds of corpses.
The fishman youngster scrutinized them, recognizing the remains belonged to various races.
He saw fishman, beastman, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and even numerous beasts, dragons, and phoenixes.
All these corpses shared one common feature: their necks had been stretched thin and elongated.
Their heads were clustered together, joined by interlocking teeth, imperfectly fused, and assembled into a single structure. All the heads formed the trunk of a giant tree.
Their necks served as flexible branches, extending outward in all directions.
Their bodies hung like ripe wheat stalks in autumn, heavy and drooping, bending the slender necks beneath their weight.
The fishman youngster gasped at this magic spectacle.
He couldn't help but utter a low cry: “Corpse-Hanging Tree... a saint level undead bloodline!”
Cang Xu's body actually contained a saint level undead bloodline.
The fishman youngster felt genuine joy for Cang Xu from the bottom of his heart!
Ten minutes later.
Cang Xu slumped in a heap, his expression listless and weary, looking utterly bedraggled.
“I never imagined the subject would suffer so terribly after being subjected to the Undead Bloodline Detection Spell,” the old magician sighed.
The agony was real, Cang Xu's body and soul had sustained severe wounds.
Yet the sensation of his neck being stretched during this ordeal was merely an illusion caused by the injuries and the awakening of his bloodline.
When the magic image of the Corpse-Hanging Tree appeared on the surface of the gray mist, his mind momentarily fractured, even inducing hallucinations.
He felt as though he had become one of the corpses hanging from that tree!
"The Undead Bloodline Detection Spell aims to uncover the hidden secrets within the target's bloodline. That's why it's so ‘brutal’, inflicting injury on the subject. Only such force can achieve the desired effect," the fishman youngster explained.
Lately, he had even abandoned his cultivation of battle qi, focusing solely on spellcasting.
He constantly pondered the intermediate soul aspect inheritance brought back by Cang Xu, while continuously practicing the Undead Bloodline Detection Spell in real combat. These efforts had accumulated profound insights within him.
Though Cang Xu felt immense discomfort, his heart was filled with joy.
“It seems my internal condition is quite complex; three bloodlines are actually intertwined within me.”
The state of his bloodlines was indeed as he described.
Some individuals possessed no transcendent bloodlines at all.
Others carried a single transcendent bloodline, but it was extremely faint.
Still others bore multiple transcendent bloodlines, varying in number and forming a relatively stable state, much like Cang Xu's case.
Coincidentally, Cang Xu possessed three undead bloodlines, each corresponding precisely to the three major schools within undead cultivation.
The Twisted Withered Claw bloodline aligned with the bone aspect.
The Hanged Ghost bloodline aligned with the soul aspect.
The Corpse-Hanging Tree bloodline aligned with the corpse aspect.
All three bloodlines were extremely diluted, collectively amounting to less than 10%.
The Corpse-Hanging Tree bloodline was the weakest, estimated by the fishman youngster to be under 1%. Though it possessed the highest quality, its scale was too small to significantly influence Cang Xu.
The Twisted Withered Claw bloodline had the highest concentration, yet it remained insufficient to overcome the quality gap. Thus, it remains suppressed by the Hanged Ghost bloodline. After all, the Twisted Withered Claw bloodline itself was only bronze level.
The Hanged Ghost bloodline's concentration fell between the other two, and its level likewise ranked midway. Yet overall, it exerted the greatest influence on Cang Xu.
Thus, when manifested in Cang Xu's cultivation, his progress in the soul aspect proved most effective among the three.
The truth of bloodlines was this complex.
It could not be determined solely by a transcendent's cultivation performance.
“I have a feeling the Corpse-Hanging Tree bloodline was brought about by my bloodline mutation this time,” Cang Xu said, barely clinging to life.
The fishman youngster shook his head: "That theory has no basis whatsoever, nor is there any point in pursuing it. But without a doubt, the Hanging Corpse Tree bloodline is the most suitable for refinement. That shall be our next objective."
"Truthfully, we've been fortunate this time. Had it been another undead bloodline, collection might prove far more difficult. The Hanging Corpse Tree stands as a singular anomaly among undead bloodlines."
"Within the bloodline spectrum, its upstream undead sources are scarce, while its downstream manifestations are as numerous as night stars. We have numerous targets to choose from, capable of extracting the Hanging Corpse Tree bloodline from many undead beings."
Cang Xu added, “But this also means that collecting 100% of the Hanging Corpse Tree bloodline is more difficult than with other undead bloodlines.”
“Correct,” the fishman youngster nodded slightly. "But realistically, achieving 100% purity is exceedingly difficult. This holds especially true for high level bloodlines."
"Lower level bloodlines can easily reach 100% purity, but what use is that to you? The value is negligible!"
On this matter, the fishman youngster spoke with authority.
His Flame Dragon King bloodline had long hovered above 30%. His current fishman bloodline concentration was even lower than that of the Flame Dragon King bloodline.
The higher the level of the bloodline, the harder it was to increase its concentration.
Unless the fishman youngster directly slew a Flame Dragon King, his bloodline concentration would skyrocket.
But if he possessed such combat prowess, would he even need to deliberately boost his Flame Dragon King bloodline concentration?
Under normal circumstances, they would select targets from the lower tiers of the bloodline spectrum, accumulating small gains to gradually build high-concentration, high level bloodlines.