Yan Liqiang spent half an hour to finish reading the 'Five Elemental Poison King Divine Technique' manual.
Thanks to his highly retentive memory, Yan Liqiang's memory was nearly photographic. Therefore, after reading the 'Five Elemental Poison King Divine Technique' manual once, the content of the manual was completely imprinted in his mind.
He never thought that such a technique could even exist in this world.
The 'Five Elemental Poison King Divine Technique' was a bizarre technique. The biggest difference between this technique and the rest was the fact that it was an overpowered support technique.
Only Martial Warriors who have established their dantian could cultivate this technique. If a practitioner wished to cultivate this technique, he would have to swallow and harmonize with core crystals of poisonous beasts which represented the gold, wood, water, fire, and earth elements as foundation. Upon succeeding in this technique, a mysterious Five Elemental Poison King Core Crystal would form in the practitioner's dantian. When this Five Elemental Poison King Divine Core Crystal integrated itself with the practitioner's inner strength, the practitioner would mysteriously be imbued with the power of poison and would gain the ability to use poison.
Such a technique was unheard and unseen of. The fact that such a profoundly strange secret technique existed in this world was beyond Yan Liqiang's imagination.
According to the 'Five Elemental Poison King Divine Technique', after a Five Elemental Poison Core Crystal formed in the practitioner's dantian, he would become immune to hundreds of types of poisons and any sort of venom. At the same time, as the practitioner's cultivation rank would increase, and the poison derived from the Five Elemental Poison King Core Crystal in the practitioner's body would become increasingly pure and powerful. The Five Elemental Poison King Core Crystal would also continuously fuse with the core crystals of other poisonous beasts through the Five Elemental Derivation, thus deriving the poisons of other poisonous beasts.
Most importantly, the practitioner capable of forming the Five Elemental Poison King Core Crystal wouldn't turn into some kind of 'poisonous being' or 'monster'. All their bodily functions would still remain normal and there would be no noticeable changes in their outward appearance. Therefore, as long as the practitioner didn't exhibit this technique and activate the Five Elemental Poison King Core Crystal in their body, no one would even notice the practitioner's cultivation of this technique.
Damn, this technique could really turn a person into a portable chemical weapon manufacturing factory! Not only that, this factory could also progressively and constantly update its poison manufacturing mechanisms.
After he finished reading the secret manual, Yan Liqiang couldn't help but be amazed in his heart.
Thinking about it, if he could master this technique, he wouldn't need to waste that much effort in looking for poisonous snakes and snake venom to help coat his flying needles. He had a hunch that adding poison to his flying needles through this technique was not the only thing he would be capable of: he'd also be able to use different types of poisons. This was because as soon as soon as the Five Elemental Poison King Core Crystal formed, he would be able to handle five different types of poisons.
It was also after reading the 'Five Elemental Poison King Divine Technique' secret manual that Yan Liqiang finally understood what those two strange, glowing pigeon egg-like things were that he had discovered at the bottom of the wooden box. If he wasn't wrong, those two items were most likely the core crystals of poisonous beasts.
From their colors, the gold one was probably the core crystal of an earth-elemental beast while the azure one was the core crystal of a water-elemental beast. Since Yan Liqiang hadn't cultivated his inner force, he didn't know what kind of beasts these two core crystals originated from. If he had cultivated his inner force, he would be able to find out by channeling his inner force into those core crystals.
The 'Five Elemental Poison King Divine Technique' wasn't a secret technique that was passed down by the Shatu people. Therefore, they must have obtained this secret technique from somewhere else. Not only that, there was a high possibility that the Shatu people had obtained this secret manual and those two beast core crystals at the same time.
The color of the bloodstain on the secret manual still seemed to be quite fresh. It would appear that it was soaked in blood not that long ago, perhaps no older than two years ago. Though Yan Liqiang had no idea how the blood got on there in the first place, just by using a little bit of imagination, one would be able to figure out that the secret manual did not peacefully fall into the hands of those Shatu people.
The 'Five Elemental Poison King Divine Technique' was extremely extraordinary and formidable. Yan Liqiang felt a rush of excitement just by reading the content. However, since he wasn't even a Martial Warrior yet, he could only swallow his saliva and read. Even if he progressed into a Martial Warrior, he still wouldn't be able to cultivate this technique without the corresponding core crystals.
Since core crystals had always been rare, the poisonous beast cores crystals were even rarer to come by, especially those with properties of the five elements. Yan Liqiang had no idea where to even start looking for them.
After repetitively examining the contents of his sack for a while, Yan Liqiang put everything back inside. He then picked up the sack, made a leap, and latched onto one of the pillars in his room Like a big frog. With another backflip and twist of his body, he made it onto the beam which was about four meters above the ground. He then treaded along the beam to the upper part of the room's wall. He felt around on the partition wall, then took out a dagger and inserted it into a crack in the wall. With a light pry, he removed two bricks and then shoved that black sack into the empty space behind the bricks.
After putting the bricks back into their original positions, Yan Liqiang jumped off from the beam and dusted his hands with a smile on his face. With this, even if someone came to search the place when he wasn't around, it would be impossible to find that the things he had hidden in the partition as long as his identity wasn't exposed.
He purposely even left some clothes and silver fragments along with some copper coins in his closet to satisfy any thieves who might sneak in.
Just when he was done with this, a commotion could be heard coming from the alley downstairs. Shortly after that, someone banged loudly on the main entrance of his courtyard.
Yan Liqiang straightened his clothes and scanned his bedroom once. After ensuring that everything was in place, he went downstairs to open the door to his courtyard.
A few people stood at the entrance. One of them was the old man who had rented this house to Yan Liqiang. Beside the old man was a bailiff, a paunchy middle-aged man, and a few other busybodies.
"Look, Captain Wu. This is the young man who is renting my place. He's not a bad person. He's actually a student from the martial arts academy in the city!" The old man immediately turned to the paunchy middle-aged man and told him when he saw Yan Liqiang come out.
"Master Xue, is something wrong?" Yan Liqiang asked the old man.
The old man smiled, "Oh it's nothing. The captain and this bailiff came early in the morning and wanted to check every house in our alley to see if there were any fugitives hiding in here. I just followed them to look around…"
That bailiff asked Yan Liqiang, "You are a student from the martial arts academy?".
"Yes!"
"Which year did you enter?"
"This year!"
"What's your name?"
"Yan Liqiang!"
"I believe you have a student pass?"
"Yes, please have a look!" Yan Liqiang took out his martial arts academy identity pass and handed it over.
The bailiff examined Yan Liqiang's identity pass carefully before his expression softened a little. Students from the martial arts academy really shouldn't be offended unnecessarily because by the time these people left the martial arts academy, they just might be at a better position than him in less than two years time.
The bailiff returned the identity pass to Yan Liqiang. "This place is quite far from the martial arts academy, why didn't you choose to live in Three Yuan Street?"
"The rent here is a lot cheaper than Three Yuan Street. I should scrimp and save my family's money as much as I can. Besides, the distance isn't too much of a hassle. Young people still have strength in their legs!"
"So, you live here alone?"
"Yes, it's just me here!"
"Can I have a look inside?"
"Please come in…"
The bailiff, landlord, and captain entered the courtyard together. The bailiff made a few rounds in a few of the rooms. He opened and checked the cabinets. He even laid down on his stomach to check underneath the bed. After inquiring the old man if they had any places like basements or the like in the house and getting a negative response, the three of them got prepared to leave. The captain was going to lead them to search the next house.
"Excuse me, Sir. Did something happen? Why is every house being searched? Are you looking for someone…?"
When the few people were about to exit, Yan Liqiang 'finally' couldn't help but ask. "King Cobra has committed another crime. He killed quite a number of Shatu people last night and also set a warehouse on fire over at the Shatu community…" The bailiff answered casually while walking.
"I thought King Cobra did a great thing instead. Some should have finished off those damn Shatu people a long time ago. Look at those Shatu people at the western side of the Nine Dragons Bridge, they all wilted overnight…" The landlord disagreed and started laughing mischievously.
"Ahem… Ahem…" The captain cleared his throat and put on a serious face. "Old Xue, stop your drivel…"
"Even if I didn't point it out, everyone else is saying the same thing too…" The old man muttered under his breath.
"What's wrong with saying that? Everyone who heard the news is happy to see those Shatu people out of luck. That King Cobra has really done a great thing for Pingxi City!" Someone immediately shouted from the crowd.
The bailiff and captain could only pretend they didn't hear anything.
Half an hour later, Yan Liqiang went to the main street and realized that the street was filled with patrolling soldiers. The moment he went inside the noodle shop, he heard a few customers talking about the incident from last night with great interest over their noodles. Everyone else around them instantly perked up their ears. Some were listening so intently that they had forgotten about their noodles.
"Did you hear? King Cobra burned down the Shatu people's warehouse in the city last night. Those Shatu people must have suffered a great loss! They said everything in the warehouse was burnt to ashes with nothing left behind. The loss was estimated to be at least over several thousand taels of silver!"
"I heard quite a lot of Shatu people died?"
"At least forty to fifty of them…"
"I heard up to a hundred. One of my brothers works at the Law Enforcement Office. He told me that all of them were killed by King Cobra! Quite a few of them were also burned to their deaths in their sleep at the warehouse. Those Shatu dogs really got it this time! Haha!"
"That should have happened long ago!" An uncle exclaimed delightfully while slapping his thigh. "If there were a few more King Cobras, the Shatu people in the city wouldn't dare to be this arrogant!"
"True. If the government can't manage them, then they should just leave it up to King Cobra…"
Yan Liqiang didn't expect the commoners in Pingxi City to actually get a kick out of last night's incident.
Before he could even finish his bowl of noodles, a bailiff came in and immediately posted up a wanted poster of King Cobra in the noodle shop.
The wanted poster of King Cobra was still the same King Cobra. However, the bounty had suddenly increased to a thousand taels of gold. Compared to before, that was at least tenfold more...