Chapter Ninety-Two: Little Red Takes Human Form

After sorting everything out, Li Yunfei let out a long breath. No longer torn, he decisively abandoned the idea of farming the Yellow Immortal instance right then and there.

He gathered up every last material from the Eight Directions Savage Thunder Formation, along with the altar and the skeletal warriors, then took out his phone and opened the navigation app. First he marked his own position, then he pinned the spot on the map.

That way, next time he came, he could simply follow the route without wasting any more effort searching.

Checking the time, he saw that it was just past noon.

He called out to the little fox, found a place for lunch, rested briefly, and only then resumed his search for the instance.

A graveyard was easy enough to find; where there were human settlements, there was almost always one. But a mass burial pit was not something found everywhere.

Such places usually came into being during wars, plagues, or natural disasters, when so many died that the bodies were buried in haste, leaving bones strewn across the ground and untended graves clustered together.

In modern society, such conditions no longer arose, so naturally no new mass burial pits would form.

As a result, any that still existed today had to be at least a century old, and many had been formed several centuries ago.

Add to that the fact that mass burial pits were disappearing in many places because of urban expansion and economic development, and these places became even rarer. Only in the mountains was there still a chance of finding one.

The mass burial pit occupied by the Yellow Immortal had also been an accidental discovery on Li Yunfei’s part. But now that he was deliberately looking for a second one, it proved far harder to find.

More than three hours later, Li Yunfei and the little fox had covered no less than two hundred kilometers in loops, already more than twenty kilometers away from Taihuang Mountain.

At last, near a mountain by a place called Stone Slab Ravine, they found a second mass burial pit.

It was just hard to let the little fox carry him in broad daylight; he was afraid of being seen, so he had to shoulder the little fox himself as he ran, which took extra time.

Fortunately, with his present constitution, even without counting his cultivation and relying only on his fleshly body, a two-hundred-kilometer mountain trek was nothing to him.

Now that he had found it, there was nothing more to say. They would simply begin at once.

Everything proceeded as before: talisman banners ringed the altar, the Eight Directions Savage Thunder Formation enveloped the entire mass burial pit, and the skeletal warriors held the perimeter.

This time, Li Yunfei chose not a level 37 instance, but a level 39 one.

He had already tasted the benefits of pushing instances beyond his level, and since he no longer needed to farm equipment for sale, improving his cultivation level had become his priority.

Once inside, the monsters were the same as before, only more numerous, with a much greater proportion of elite foes.

The ghostly creatures in the level 39 mass burial pit numbered over six thousand in total, including more than eighty green-stiff corpses.

The numbers of fierce ghosts, malignant spirits, and grinning walking corpses were all nearly a third of the total.

Even the skeletons had evolved from white bone to silver. If before they had only possessed a metallic sheen, now their bones were almost metal itself.

That gave them considerably greater resistance to thunder, though in truth they still relied chiefly on soul power to withstand lightning’s purifying force.

Once their soul power was exhausted, they could only last a little longer. After all, even metal would melt if struck by electricity hot enough.

In short, the overall strength of the level 39 monsters had increased quite a bit, but it still amounted to very little.

Li Yunfei simply scattered a few more handfuls of Heaven Thunder talismans.

At worst, there were too many green-stiff corpses for the skeletal warriors to handle comfortably.

But with the little fox and Li Yunfei himself joining the fray, the green-stiff corpses still failed to make any real waves.

The main reason was that green-stiff corpses moved by hopping, unlike the Skeleton King, which ran. Even if they were bound by talisman banners, it was useless; they could still spring right out.

So Li Yunfei stopped bothering with that. Letting the skeletal warriors hack them a few times only hastened their deaths.

When most of the ghosts and monsters in the field had been wiped out, Li Yunfei and the little fox both advanced to level 40, and the skeletal warriors rose to level 32.

Upon reaching level 40, the system inventory fused once again. The five twenty-cubic-meter spaces merged into one hundred-cubic-meter space, large enough to store even bigger objects.

From now on, he could keep a car inside his spatial storage and take it out for use wherever he went.

Then came the greatest surprise of the day.

The moment the little fox reached level 40, red light once again surged across her entire body.

Within that red glow, a third tail extended from behind her.

The instant the third tail appeared, the little fox’s body rapidly shrank. Under Li Yunfei’s breath-held, rapt attention, she transformed into human form.

Once she had taken human shape, she rose from all fours to stand upright.

The red light faded, revealing the human-shaped little fox before Li Yunfei.

She wore a gorgeous scarlet short dress, the hem reaching only to her thighs and revealing a pair of legs as white and slender as lotus roots.

On her delicate little feet were a pair of cute red ankle boots.

Her long crimson hair flowed softly over her shoulders, her skin as tender and lustrous as fine white jade. In her great, enchanting eyes gleamed a crafty, lively light.

Pink lips, gentle fox-like eyes, a dainty nose, graceful brows, and a pretty little face.

Together, these features formed the making of a peerless beauty.

Yes, the making of one, not a beauty herself.

For she stood only as high as Li Yunfei’s waist and looked no more than ten years old.

The little fox’s human form was not the ravishing enchantress Li Yunfei had imagined, but rather an exquisite little loli.

A complicated emotion flashed through Li Yunfei’s eyes. It was not quite disappointment, only that reality had drifted a little from his expectations.

He had once thought that, since he was walking a cultivation path unlike anyone else’s, it would be enough if there were a companion to travel with him along the way.

If that companion happened to be a peerless beauty, so much the better.

But looking at the little loli before him, who possessed the unrivaled charm of a three-tailed demon fox without the corresponding figure, he somehow felt as though a heavy, invisible burden had settled upon his shoulders.

That feeling was like... being a father?

Seeing her master staring blankly at her, Ruby gave a giggle and, grasping the hem of her dress with her slender jade-like fingers, turned in a circle on the spot.

In a voice that was clearly childish yet somehow full of allure, she asked, “Master, do I look good?”

Li Yunfei came back to himself. Looking at the little loli smiling like a flower in bloom, his own face broke into a warm and tender smile.

A little loli it was, then.

At three tails, she was still a little loli; by six tails, she surely could not still be one.

It seemed the little fox’s growth path would be something like: three-tailed loli, six-tailed maiden, nine-tailed mature beauty.

Strictly speaking, she was not even a year old yet.

“Beautiful. Whether you’re a fox or human, Ruby, you’re the prettiest of all.”

For some reason, his words took on a tone of coaxing a child, but Ruby fell for it completely.

Delighted, she flung her arms wide and sprang onto Li Yunfei, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her short little legs parted and hooked around his ribs, and she stuck out her pink tongue to lick his cheek.

This was how she showed affection. Having only just taken human form, many of her habits still remained in the fox’s way.

Li Yunfei did not feel the least bit uncomfortable. As for human manners and customs, he could teach her slowly later; there was no need to force her to adapt all at once.

He patted her on the back and said, “All right. The thunder has weakened again, and we’re still in the instance. Let’s clear it first.”

“Okay, Master.”

Ruby answered sweetly, then obediently leaped down to the ground.

Catching sight of the green-stiff corpses hopping out of the sea of thunder again, she gave a sharp cry. In a flash, her figure vanished from where she stood, and when she reappeared, she was already beside the skeletal warrior at the far left.

With both hands moving in rapid succession, she sent out one fireball after another, each as large as a millstone. Every one struck the green-stiff corpses dead on, blasting them far back into the thunder sea.

Li Yunfei watched this scene in astonishment. The way Ruby had vanished just now was definitely not merely a matter of speed.

He hurriedly opened the beast companion panel to check the talent skill she had unlocked at level 40.

The moment he saw the name of Ruby’s new level 40 skill, understanding dawned on his face.

So that was it.

Ruby’s newly unlocked level 40 skill was Shrink the Earth to a Foot, an exceedingly practical ability.