In cultivation, the dantian plays a great part in the human body.
Normally, even when a dantian was pierced, for someone in the Foundation building realm, it wasn't a big deal.
As long as they held their Qi and stabilized themselves or used some healing pill, the dantian would heal itself.
Only when a dantian was shattered completely would it have a significant impact.
But Zhiran clearly didn't have the strength to do much with his Third Layer Qi Condensation.
Even piercing slightly drained all the Qi from his body.
However, in this situation, it was enough.
Elder Shuren wasn't in a normal state to heal himself after all. And due to the continuous leakage of his Qi, he could no longer maintain his Qi barrier, let alone launch a counterattack.
"I will kill you."
When the situation became hopeless, endless anger consumed Elder Shuren's mind as he cursed Zhiran with extreme hatred.
His eyes locked onto him, blazing with such fury it was as if they could pierce him like a sieve.
"I know, and I am afraid. Believe me,"
However, Zhiran showed no fear and just simply nodded, as if agreeing.
Then, without stopping at all, he suddenly withdrew the sword from the elder's abdomen, grabbed his head instead, lifting it slightly, and whispered with a low smile:
"And I also know that you can still kill me with your spiritual consciousness. So… guess what I will do?"
He then smiled like a demon, making Elder Shuren's eyes widen in extreme fear.
"Don't—"
"Swish!"
Unfortunately, before the elder could even beg, Zhiran swung his sword in his right hand, slicing through the head he was holding by the hair in a single strike.
With no Qi barrier to stop him, Zhiran, using just a few precise movements, severed the head cleanly.
"Thud!"
The headless body collapsed into the debris below, marking the end of an elder of the Divine Cauldron Sect.
How pathetic.
Such a powerful person had been killed mercilessly by someone so far below his level.
Truly, even Zhiran despised him from his heart.
"Finally over."
Seeing that the elder was dead, Zhiran breathed a sigh of relief as he felt that his entire body ached like never before.
After all, from throwing a talisman to severing the head of an elder, he did everything in a few seconds with no gap in between.
Besides, to pierce the dantian of the elder, he used every ounce of Qi inside him, leaving him bare.
If he were unable to sever the head just now, he would have had even less of a chance the next time.
Everything was so hectic that if he made even a little mistake, he would be dead.
Fortunately, everything worked as he planned.
"Now, all that's left is to cure this poison. Let's find the antidote, fast."
He said, and was about to throw the head in his hand that was dripping with blood, when suddenly, he heard a crisp voice in his mind, followed by a screen filled with text.
---
[A fresh brain with a damaged level of 32% has been detected.]
[Do you want to perform extraction?]
---
The prompt was robotic, devoid of any emotion. It suddenly appeared in Zhiran's mind after he touched the dead head in his hand.
'What is this?'
Mo Zhiran looked at the ominous blood-red prompt visible in his mind and almost shivered in fright.
The way those blood-red letters appeared, and the suddenness of the voice, was truly terrifying.
'Is this… my gold finger?'
However, after the dread came a realization that made Zhiran's heart flutter.
After all, he knew what a gold finger was, as he was a transmigrator. In his previous life, he also tried to search for such an exclusive gold finger in every way possible.
But even after so many years, when it never appeared, he lost all hope and forgot about it.
Still, he managed to reach the early stage of the gold core with his mediocre talent, only one level lower than Tianyu.
Of course, the difference between his gold core and Tianyu's was like heaven and earth, and though he used a demonic technique to accelerate his realm, it still reflected his sheer perseverance in cultivation.
So, when he suddenly felt that he might have awakened his cheat in this life, Zhiran's heart skipped a beat.
'Perform extraction!'
Zhiran swallowed unconsciously, a flicker of hope and excitement flashing in his eyes.
The moment he gave the order in his mind, the blood-red letters dissolved on their own and were immediately replaced by the next prompt.
---
[Extraction successful!]
[Congratulations! You have gained a deep memory of Elder Shuren: Divine Core Technique (Proficient)]
---
The prompt was short, just as before, yet it was enough, as Zhiran suddenly felt a flood of information bombarding his mind, making him dizzy.
Then, his vision abruptly shifted as he saw a middle-aged man sitting across the room, meditating and practicing a technique relentlessly.
The vision was blurry, and he couldn't see everything clearly. But he could feel the technique practiced by the man, which was none other than the Divine Core Technique.
'Is this Elder Shuren?'
Zhiran was shocked by the vision he saw when suddenly the scene changed to another place, with the same person meditating silently.
Just like that, the vision changed again and again, and each time what he saw was the elder meditating on the Divine Core Technique.
And the most shocking part of this was that, as the scene changed from one to another, Zhiran also slowly began to remember the technique as if he himself had practiced for countless years, just like the elder in his vision.
He saw how the elder learned about the flaws in his Qi Condensation realm.
He saw how the elder realized his foundation was flawed and what he should have done to make it perfect before ascending the realm.
He also saw the way to use Qi effectively in both realms for maximum efficiency, which even managed to surprise him, who had been in the realm of Gold Core before.
Without even realizing it himself, Zhiran was already circulating the Qi within him in a specific pattern, refining it continuously.
The small amount of spiritual energy in the cave also began to gather around him, drilling into him without the need for a medium or the force a Qi Condensation cultivator would normally require.
From how he was absorbing each experience of Elder Shuren with the Divine Core Technique, Zhiran already realized that he was basically transmitting data from the brain in his hand.
And it wasn't some cryptic zip file he had to extract on his own, but vivid and seamless, as if he could recall every detail of the technique without effort.
By the time the vision ended and he awoke, he had already memorized the Divine Core Technique, and that too at the Proficient level.
'How is this possible?'