With her new toys, Hua Jian cheerfully began a new round of dissection on the leopard’s corpse.
This time, her efficiency was much higher—several vines working together quickly separated bones from flesh.
Once done, Hua Jian looked at her summoned vines and noticed that not a single drop of blood stained them. Instead, tiny flowers like grains of rice blossomed from them.
Cutting off the Spiritual Power, Hua Jian watched as the vines retracted like measuring tapes into her body, curiosity in her heart.
The Spirit Technique looked miraculous, but its principle was simple—the world’s Heaven-defying techniques really couldn’t be understood with common sense.
What she didn’t know was that the spell she’d used was completely different from what Linglong had tried to teach her.
Linglong was watching with a difficult-to-describe expression, debating whether to tell Hua Jian that her Spirit Technique was entirely different.
Other people’s plants appeared out of thin air. How come hers grew out of her own body?
Most Wood Element Cultivators either prepared seeds and grew the plants from those, or summoned plants from thin air—never like Hua Jian.
Vines sprouting from the body was way too creepy.
Even Devil Dao Cultivators would praise such a maneuver—Hua Jian’s display resembled those who raised strange Spirit Creatures inside their own bodies as weapons.
And those people were the most terrifying in the Devil Dao.
If someone could do that to themselves, what would they do to their enemies?
“These bones can be stored and ground down later, but what about the meat?” Hua Jian asked, staring at the separated bones and flesh.
She had no appetite, but it felt wasteful to just leave it here.
Truly a dilemma, like picking meat off bones.
“Just leave it here. It’s just ordinary Spirit Beast meat—nothing rare in this place.” Linglong decided for her.
Storage Pouches had limited space—it wasn’t worth wasting room on that.
Plus, meat spoiled easily, contaminating the Storage Pouch. Cleaning it out was a nightmare.
Hearing Linglong’s reasoning, Hua Jian nodded thoughtfully—Linglong made perfect sense.
So she started dismantling the skeleton. Maybe because she wanted to practice her new skill, Hua Jian used the vines once more.
This time, she tested the strength of the vines—wrapping one around the ribcage, she pulled and snapped off a bone.
Then, using several vines, she tried to crush it into powder.
But this attempt failed—snapping bones and grinding them to powder were two different things.
Despite her best effort, she only left a few cracks.
“Can’t crush it, huh…” she said regretfully, putting the cracked bone aside and turning to the rest.
As Hua Jian quickly dismantled the skeleton, Linglong’s expression remained complicated.
She understood Hua Jian’s curiosity after gaining new powers, but weren’t these abilities a little too strong?
Hua Jian summoned four vines at once, each performing a different task—there was no awkwardness at all, unlike other Cultivators who struggled to control even one the first time.
Others could barely manage one vine on their first try, let alone multitask.
Otherwise, their Soulforce would become disordered!
But Hua Jian, on her first try, could control four at once—a feat that only high-level Ling Kings or Ling Emperors could manage.
Even Linglong herself could barely handle two at once.
But for Hua Jian, it was as natural as eating or drinking.
And these vines weren’t fragile either—they could even crack Spirit Beast bones, a sign of their tremendous power.
Linglong had a thought: perhaps Hua Jian didn’t lack offensive power at all—she just lacked battle methods.
With just a few powerful, flexible vines, Linglong felt even most Spirit Masters would struggle against her.
She picked up a leftover beast bone and crushed it with her hand.
With a crisp crack, it shattered into several pieces.
“Are you showing off your strength?” Hua Jian looked at Linglong, exasperated—she’d failed to crush the bone, but Linglong did it effortlessly. Who could blame her for overthinking?
Having dismantled the skeleton into a neat pile, Hua Jian stored the bones in her Storage Pouch and recalled her colored vines.
The Spirit Technique didn’t consume much power, but after all that work, she did feel a little hungry.
“I just wanted to see how strong your vines are.” Linglong held the broken bone fragment, asking, “Want to take these bones back too?”
“No need. I’ll grind them into powder later.” Hua Jian shook her head—she’d planned to do that anyway. These broken bones saved her a step.
The Lingcaifeng Master had given her a set of tools for grinding bone powder before she left, supposedly standard issue for inner sect disciples.
The Master had told her to use them however she wished, and if she broke them, to let her know and she’d go after the maker.
While packing bone fragments into a jade container, Hua Jian pondered if her Spirit Technique could be improved.
Sprouting vines from her palms was a little inconvenient—when four appeared, she couldn’t use her hands for anything else. Could she change where they appeared?
Did she need to think this through? Actually, maybe not.
She tried the Spirit Technique again and noticed several points inside her body where Spiritual Power gathered before the vines emerged.
She just needed to change the gathering point, and the vines would appear elsewhere.
“So it works like that…” Choosing her right wrist as the spawn point, Hua Jian’s eyes sparkled as she watched vines emerge from her wrist.
Her mind opened up at once!
If she could change the origin, maybe she could change the shape to suit different tasks too?
For instance, if she wanted to grind bone powder, the vines could sprout sturdy, serrated edges…
No sooner thought than done. Hua Jian began modifying the vines with Spiritual Power.
After about half an hour, she finally completed her first prototype.
Changing the origin was easy, but changing their shape was a bigger project.
She also noticed another benefit: the vines had preset forms.
For example, their location—if she didn’t specify, they’d default to her palms or back.
Functions also had presets—besides the “power vine” she just used, she found the vines had absorption abilities.
Linglong had suggested she try absorbing things with them.
So Hua Jian gave it a go—the result was ridiculously effective.
She plunged a vine into the Spirit Beast meat, thought “absorb,” and all four vines started devouring the flesh like hungry roots.
She couldn’t see exactly how, but she sensed the main vine split into countless fine roots, absorbing the whole mass.
When finished, the flesh was reduced to ash, and her summoned vines gleamed with even brighter color.
Most of the energy was drawn into her body, filling her stomach in an instant.
“I can eat like this?” Hua Jian smacked her lips—her mouth hadn’t tasted anything, but her stomach felt full. It was odd.
Not as good as eating for real, she thought.
Sensing her dissatisfaction, the stored energy began to flow into a vine not yet withdrawn. Soon, a beautiful colored flower bloomed on it.
After blooming, the flower withered, leaving only petals full of Spiritual Power.
Hua Jian instinctively collected the petals—her gut told her this was the energy she couldn’t digest, transformed.
There weren’t many petals—just six, not even enough to cover half her palm.
Retracting her vines, Hua Jian examined the petals—they were quite pretty, shimmering with a radiant glow, no less impressive than Linglong’s dragon scales.
“What are these?” She turned to Linglong, hoping for an answer from the dragon girl.
After all, she’d gotten them on Linglong’s advice—surely she knew?
“Wood Element Cultivators’ summoned plants aren’t much different from ordinary ones. These petals are probably what your vines absorbed from the leopard.”
Linglong started spouting nonsense—no other Wood Element Cultivator could do this. Hua Jian was unique.
But the Lingcaifeng Master had told her to avoid revealing Hua Jian’s true nature until the truth was known.
As long as the system ran, better not poke at it. If something broke, that would be bad.
If Hua Jian realized she might not be human and suddenly lost her humanity and became a monster, then what?
To avoid that, it was better not to let Hua Jian suspect she might not be human.
“Oh! That’s how it is.” Hua Jian believed it—she never thought Linglong would lie about something so basic.
Linglong then seriously warned her, “But remember, don’t do this in front of others—especially not to Cultivators.”
“Why?”
“Think about it—wouldn’t that be like eating people?” This time, Linglong wasn’t lying, and her tone was firm.
Killing a Cultivator and absorbing their power—no matter the era, that was a Devil Dao act.
“If you don’t want the Hudaosi chasing you to the ends of the earth, you’d better not try it.”
Hua Jian nodded quickly, “Got it! I’d never do that!”
Linglong’s warning made her realize the implications—using that on people would be unthinkable.
Even she would admit—that was something only the Devil Dao would do. What decent person would kill an enemy and then eat them?
Only beasts would do that!
With that matter settled, Hua Jian spent a little more time, finally modifying the vines to her liking.
Two vines now bore rows of sharp teeth, while the other two fixed bones in the air for the colored vine “files” to grind against.
Her hands rested idly as she carefully examined a colorful petal made from the black leopard.
After a while, she tossed the petal in her mouth.
She’d made it herself, after all—it couldn’t poison her.
The petal melted instantly, turning into a warm, sweet stream in her belly.
The taste was quite good—just a bit light on the energy.
Hua Jian did a quick calculation—after turning into petals, about thirty percent of the Spirit Beast’s energy was lost compared to direct vine absorption. The difference was huge.
Still, it was a decent way to process a Spirit Beast’s corpse—better than leaving it out in the open.
As for hiding it from others… things would work out. Hua Jian believed she’d find a way to avoid suspicion.
Now that her hands were freed by the vines, her efficiency in grinding bone powder increased significantly.
The finished product finally looked like the real thing.
Unlike before, when the powder still had big chunks—this time, it was fine and uniform.
If someone didn’t know, they’d think her little box was filled with flour.
All thanks to her vine files—without them, she couldn’t have processed the bones so well.
“Look, Linglong—they can get this thin and soft!” During the process, Hua Jian discovered another function—the vines could change size at will.
That was why her powder came out so fine—her tools had gotten more precise, so the result was more refined.
“Amazing.” Linglong didn’t hesitate to praise her.
She considered reminding Hua Jian that the vines could be used not just for chores, but also in combat.
But soon, Linglong realized she was still underestimating Hua Jian—and her capacity for mischief.
These vines had limitless potential—Hua Jian surely wouldn’t stop at just using them for daily chores!
“Do you think I could decorate them to look like some rare Spirit Creature, and when someone comes to collect it—wham! Gotcha?” Hua Jian’s eyes sparkled.
It was time for these naïve Cultivators to learn the terror of the treasure mimic!