Sage of Humanity

Just moments later, Lu Ye had gathered the spoils of war and left, leaving behind two incomplete corpses at the scene.

Spirit Stream Level 4 cultivators could not withstand even three strikes from Lu Ye, let alone those of Spirit Stream Level 3? Having seized the initiative, Lu Ye had sealed their fate.

This time, Lu Ye deliberately noticed that killing one person increased his merit by three points, and two people added up to six points, bringing his total merit to sixty-two!

As night fell, in a tunnel along the side of the mountain, Lu Ye hid and recuperated, while Yiyi and Big Tiger continued to guard both ends to prevent unseen intrusions.

Throughout the day, he fought in three battles, earning significant gains. He didn't keep any of the spoils for himself; instead, he exchanged them all for elixir pills with the people from Xuanmen, obtaining more than twenty pills, eighty percent of which were Spirit-Nurturing Pills.

Compared to these spoils, Lu Ye felt that the most significant gain was the experience of battling against others. Since entering the Spirit Stream battlefield, though he had experienced several fights, there were long intervals between those fights, unlike this time where he continuously battled throughout the day.

Such intense combat not only allowed him to quickly identify his shortcomings but also enriched his combat skills.

Cultivation in isolation could never compare with the real tests of combat, which were bought with blood and injuries.

He sustained some injuries, but none were serious.

Lu Ye first ate some dried meat to alleviate his hunger, and after eating his fill, he began to take elixir pills to replenish the spirit force he had lost.

In the battles, he frequently used Sharpness and Defense Spirit Runes. Although these spirit runes could perform beyond the level of his cultivation, the downside was clear: they consumed a lot.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

If Lu Ye wanted to ensure his combat effectiveness in the upcoming actions, he had to keep his spirit force sufficiently replenished.

Now at Spirit Stream Level 3, his efficiency in refining pill energy had improved.

Lu Ye did not yet know the consumption required to open another spiritual orifice, but according to previous patterns, the consumption for opening spiritual orifices would increase, though the efficiency of cultivation would also improve accordingly, so the time added with each new orifice would not be too significant and could even out.

The night passed without incident. The Sky-Splitting Gorge was quiet, with no sounds of Xuanmen and Nine Stars Sect cultivators fighting. Currently, everyone's cultivation was still low, so almost unanimously, they chose to find places to recuperate at night, replenishing what they had spent during the day. Real battles only occurred during the daytime.

When dawn broke, Lu Ye led Big Tiger and Yiyi out of the tunnel, embarking on a hunting expedition.

For several consecutive days, Lu Ye spent his time constantly in battle, sometimes engaging in one or two, sometimes in three or four. His stash of elixir pills gradually increased, and his merits continued to accumulate.

He finally understood the method of calculating merits. From his observations, the cultivation level of a slain cultivator corresponded to the merit points: that was the basic value.

For instance, if he killed a cultivator of Spirit Stream Level 2, he would gain two merit points, Level 3 would yield three points, and so on...

However, if he killed an enemy of a higher level, the merit gained for each level over would increase by a fundamental value.

As Lu Ye was of Level 3, killing a cultivator of the same level yielded only three merit points, but killing one of Level 4 granted him eight merit points.

Previously, when he was at Level 2 and killed someone at Level 4, surpassing two small levels, the merit gained was twelve...

He did some quick calculations and found that this method matched the merits he had obtained from his previous kills. Apparently, this was the correct calculation method.

After several days of combat, he grew increasingly accustomed to the life-and-death struggles with his enemies. Although his cultivation had not increased, his combat skills had vastly improved, thus increasing his efficiency in killing enemies.

In recent days, Lu Ye had also tried to see if he could leave Sky-Splitting Gorge, but he found it highly unlikely.

He didn't know how many people Xuanmen and Nine Stars Sect had deployed in this area of Sky-Splitting Gorge, but according to his and Yiyi's observations, both sides had nearly a thousand cultivators in the Spirit Stream Realm!

Thousands of cultivators scattered in this vast labyrinth could encounter enemies at any time and place. After passing through the maze, the terrain ahead would suddenly narrow, eventually funneling into a single path through Sky-Splitting Gorge—the only way out.

Nine Stars Sect had positioned a large number of people at the gorge's mouth, and showing his face would almost certainly lead to a bad end for him.

It was better for him to hide in the maze and kill enemies.

Having acted several times in the last few days, Lu Ye's whereabouts had been exposed, and he distinctly felt that Nine Stars Sect's efforts to capture him were intensifying. The most obvious sign was the increased size of the cultivator squads he now encountered.

The squads he encountered initially consisted of three or four people, but now each squad had at least five or six, and some even had more than ten.

For squads of three or four people, Lu Ye would grit his teeth and take them on, but he wouldn't dare attack squads of five or six. As for those with a dozen members, he stayed as far away as possible.

After suffering a few setbacks, the cultivators from Xuanmen also made adjustments, increasing the number of people in their squads to counter Nine Stars Sect.

In the canyon maze, a major battle was raging, involving nearly twenty cultivators, with each side having about ten people, several of whom were in the Spirit Stream Level 4. However, the outcome was mutually detrimental, with casualties on both sides.

In the heat of the battle, a tiger's roar burst forth, causing both parties to tense visibly.

Someone exclaimed with exhilaration, "The mountain tiger is here!"

It was a cultivator from Xuanmen.

Riding rapidly toward the battlefield on a tiger's back, Lu Ye frowned upon hearing this. He didn't know how he had gotten the nickname "mountain tiger," which he found rather distasteful.

However, considering that neither party knew his real name to date, Lu Ye had no choice but to begrudgingly accept this nickname.

Coming from behind the Xuanmen troops and hearing the roar of the tiger, the Xuanmen cultivators tacitly cleared a path. Big Tiger charged into the battlefield and directly pounced on a Spirit Stream Level 3 cultivator, bringing him to the ground.

Meanwhile, Lu Ye, who was riding on its back, had already dashed forward. His long saber drawn, a flash of brilliant light from the blade aimed at a Spirit Stream Level 4 cultivator.

The person engaged in combat with him was a Level 4 from Xuanmen, who had an innocent baby face and seemed harmless. Seeing Lu Ye swoop down like a hawk, he couldn't help but shout, "Don't steal my kill!"

He was already gaining the upper hand, and with enough time, he could have taken down his opponent.

It was no wonder he shouted like that, given that in recent days, "mountain tiger's" fame had spread widely among the Xuanmen cultivators. It was said that he never took any spoils of war after his kills, requiring only some elixir pills from Xuanmen people. Moreover, this individual often appeared out of nowhere, fond of stealing kills.

Sometimes, his actions could save a disciple of Xuanmen from dire situations, earning him heartfelt gratitude.

However, sometimes, even when someone from Xuanmen was already prevailing, he would suddenly attack, stealing the deserved merits from others.

The cultivators of Xuanmen thus had a love-hate relationship with this man.