This is really outrageous—Sis opened the door for ‘outrageous’, and now outrageous has arrived at her place.

Can transformation even strip your clothes off?

Lin Mo wasn’t exactly a gentleman or a saint. He didn’t even bother turning around. On the contrary, he openly took a good look at Qu Ruyan.

After all, even his own spirit beast didn’t care—why should he?

“I came in after transforming. My clothes were left outside the secret realm,” she explained.

Qu Ruyan didn’t think much of it and prepared to jump into the spring.

“Wait, wait…” Lin Mo hurriedly stopped her.

The softness and delicacy he felt under his hands made his mind waver.

He quickly took out a set of clothes from his storage ring that Qu Ruyan could wear. “Put these on quickly. If someone else sees you like this, they’ll think I’m some kind of pervert.”

Qu Ruyan tilted her head.
“Master, what’s a pervert?”

That word “Master,” in this situation, only made Lin Mo seem more perverted.

“Why are you suddenly calling me that?”

“I saw other spirit beasts call their humans that. Did I get it wrong?” Qu Ruyan looked puzzled, then obediently changed into the clothes.

Lin Mo was speechless.
“…It’s not wrong, but just keep calling me ‘Senior Brother’ like before.”

Sometimes, he really wondered if Qu Ruyan’s airheadedness was just an act.
She always found ways to cause trouble.

After the two entered the spring, they discovered a karst cave.

Inside, a black flood dragon was resting.

Behind the flood dragon lay a brilliantly colored, multicolored stone.

Lin Mo immediately confirmed: this stone was the reason the spiritual energy in the spring was so dense.

“Senior Brother…” Qu Ruyan tugged at Lin Mo’s sleeve and swallowed nervously. “That thing… doesn’t look easy to deal with…”

“Can you have a little courage? You’re at least a descendant of the ancient ferocious beast Taotie, and you’re afraid of a mangy snake?” Lin Mo had a look of bitter disappointment, like hating iron for not becoming steel.

“Senior Brother… I think… it got mad when you called it a mangy snake…” Qu Ruyan trembled, pointing toward the flood dragon.

As Lin Mo turned around, a pitch-black dragon face appeared right in front of him, startling him.

He reflexively slapped the dragon’s snout. “Get lost! Listen to my punch!”

This move completely enraged the flood dragon. Its massive body moved as it lashed out with a mighty tail swipe.

A fierce wind howled. Seeing that inky black tail sweeping toward him, Lin Mo didn’t dare be careless. He raised the Liuli Sword to block.

A loud clang! rang out.

Lin Mo hadn’t expected the flood dragon’s tail to be so hard. The sheer force sent him flying.

Stabilizing his body mid-air, he immediately countered with a move—“Three Thousand Sword Technique.” He had cultivated it to perfection at the Qi Refining stage, and its power had reached Earth-level technique strength.

Yet, even after the strike, the flood dragon only suffered minor external injuries, losing a few scales.

“This flood dragon… is at least at the Nascent Soul level.”

Beasts are naturally tough. At the same realm, they’re far more formidable than human cultivators.

Without a celestial-grade treasure or a Heaven-level technique, it’s rare for a human Nascent Soul cultivator to slay a Nascent Soul-level beast solo.

The flood dragon roared furiously. Clearly, it was enraged. Lin Mo quickly told Qu Ruyan to retreat.

At this moment, the Liuli Sword in his hand spoke:
“M-Master… why not use that sword technique from last time?”

The way it said “Master” sounded particularly awkward.

But Lin Mo understood. Ever since Zhu Shiyao formally parted ways with it, the Liuli Sword had finally accepted him as its master.

Thinking of this, Lin Mo decided not to hold back anymore.

This was already a Golden Core taking on a Nascent Soul—

The demonic energy within Lin Mo’s Golden Core surged wildly. His whole body emitted waves of black aura, and his eyes turned blood-red.

The Liuli Sword in his hand became enveloped in a crimson glow.

He could see the karma lingering around the flood dragon—soul imprints of many cultivators and beasts coiled around its body.

A massive red sword energy descended from the sky, striking the flood dragon directly.

Just like when he killed the Brow Venom Elder before, this crimson sword energy pierced through the flood dragon’s body and began draining its blood essence.

As its blood drained away, the flood dragon let out a final wail before completely losing all signs of life.

Eventually, the crimson sword energy returned entirely to Lin Mo.

Just from that one strike, Lin Mo felt as if his meridians were burning all over again.

Only when the blood essence completely merged into his body did his eyes return to their normal color.

Feeling the transformation in his body, Lin Mo realized that although his cultivation realm hadn’t improved, his physique and strength had grown by more than just a little.

“This technique is truly profound… not only is it terrifyingly powerful, it can even absorb the blood essence of its target to temper the body.” Lin Mo sighed in amazement.

“Senior Brother, you’re really amazing! You actually defeated that flood dragon!” Qu Ruyan ran over, stars in her eyes as she looked at the dragon’s corpse, full of admiration.

“You’re a descendant of the Chi Lin, after all. If you train properly, even a real dragon won’t be your match in the future.”

“I’m that powerful?” Qu Ruyan looked stunned—clearly, she didn’t believe she had such potential.

Lin Mo took a deep breath. He didn’t know how long it would take before he could truly witness Qu Ruyan’s growth.

After extracting the demon core from the flood dragon’s body, Lin Mo stared at the corpse, thinking about how to deal with it.

This was a flood dragon—every part of its body was a treasure.

Suddenly, an idea struck him. He looked at Qu Ruyan and said, “This thing—can you eat it?”

Qu Ruyan bit her finger and looked at the flood dragon’s corpse with disgust. “I can eat it… but Senior Brother, it’s all black and looks nasty.”

Lin Mo chuckled. “I heard dragon meat actually tastes really good.”

“Really, Senior Brother?”

“You won’t know till you try a bite.”

After all, a flood dragon was just an evolved snake.

He’d heard that snake meat tasted good and had 1.5 times the protein of chicken.

So dragon meat shouldn’t be too bad either.

Using the Liuli Sword, Lin Mo sliced off the flood dragon’s scales. He pointed at its tail and said, “Start gnawing from the tail.”

Qu Ruyan trusted Lin Mo a lot. Opening her mouth wide, she bit down and began tearing at the flood dragon’s tail.

Lin Mo watched with curiosity from the side.

Qu Ruyan chewed away bite by bite.

And to be fair, the girl had quite a strong jaw—she didn’t struggle at all to rip apart the dragon meat.

“How does it taste?” Lin Mo asked with a smile.

“It’s a bit sour, but not bad at all!” Qu Ruyan said, then happily chomped on the tail again.

Lin Mo, curious himself, sliced off a piece of dragon meat too—but he didn’t plan to eat it raw.

He cast a fire spell, skewered the meat on the Liuli Sword, and sat down to roast it on the spot.

“Uuuugh, you’re using me like this again… can’t you show a little respect for a celestial sword?” the sword whined.

Lin Mo responded inwardly, “You keep calling yourself a celestial sword, but you’re just a spirit-grade magic weapon.”

Xiao Li—his sword—lost a part of its pride…

“But Xiao Li remembers fighting against an divine weapon—back and forth, evenly matched!”

“Yes, yes, you’re the greatest,” Lin Mo replied, tone full of perfunctory indifference.

“A sword that claims it could go toe-to-toe with divine weapons… Why not brag about slaying immortals while you’re at it?”

Before long, a rich aroma filled the air.

“Senior Brother, can I try yours?” Qu Ruyan stared fixedly at the flood dragon meat sizzling in Lin Mo’s hands, teeth nearly clacking from anticipation.

“You little glutton—aren’t you perfectly capable? If you want roast meat, why not try roasting it yourself?”

Though he said that, Lin Mo still handed over half of the cooked flood dragon meat to Qu Ruyan.

Qu Ruyan didn’t bother pretending to be reserved—she opened her mouth eagerly and began devouring the meat.

She was so focused on eating, not saying a word, her whole face exuding pure concentration.

Seeing her like this, Lin Mo figured the dragon meat must taste pretty good.

And he wasn’t wrong.

Not only was the meat tender and flavorful, it didn’t have the sourness she’d mentioned earlier.

Even better, while eating it, Lin Mo could feel the spiritual energy within his body growing denser.

As he chewed, his eyes drifted back toward that multicolored stone.

The closer he got to the stone, the denser the spiritual energy became, clearly converging toward it.

“Is that… a Spirit-Gathering Stone?”

Lin Mo recognized the object at once.

Spirit-Gathering Stones are the cores of cultivation arrays.

The ones he’d used before were all low-grade, and even those fetched outrageous prices on the market.

Especially higher-grade ones—those were priceless.

“This Spirit-Gathering Stone is insane,” he muttered.

After a rough estimate, he realized this one gathered spiritual energy over ten times faster than the entire array his grandfather once set up.

A treasure like this was practically a portable cultivation sanctuary.

As long as he found a place rich in spiritual energy, pulling this out would skyrocket his cultivation efficiency.

He stowed the stone in his storage ring.

Then he glanced over at Qu Ruyan—still chomping away—and noticed she’d already eaten a full tenth of the dragon meat.

The sight was downright unscientific. It shattered Lin Mo’s worldview.

That tenth of dragon meat was several times larger than Qu Ruyan herself!

“Wait—stop eating.”

“Huh? What’s wrong, Senior Brother?”

Qu Ruyan looked up, puzzled, still gnawing on a piece of dragon meat.

“That pile of meat is bigger than you. How are you fitting it all into your stomach?” Lin Mo stared at her slightly rounded belly in disbelief.

“I just ate it like normal…” Qu Ruyan looked completely confused, as if that was the most ordinary thing in the world.

Suddenly, Lin Mo remembered—the Taotie was a legendary beast known for devouring anything, said to have bottomless hunger.

Now that he thought about it, Qu Ruyan might have inherited that monstrous appetite.

“Hey, Yanyan,” he said cautiously. “Senior Brother has a question for you.”

“What is it?”

“Have you… ever felt full before?”

“Nope. I feel hungry every day. Though this time, eating the flood dragon gave me a tiny sense of fullness.”

“How much?”

“Maybe… half a percent?”

Lin Mo took in a sharp breath and turned away.

He realized that with his current financial means, there was absolutely no way he could afford to feed this girl every day.

He quietly closed that idea in his heart.