For a moment, Liu Xing caught the surprise in the mantis's eyes. When the lightning bullet struck, electricity arced around its body, paralyzing it as if its nerves had been fried. The creature crashed into him like a hammer, rattling his brain and blurring his vision. After they landed on the grass, they rolled several times before Liu Xing found an opening and jumped away, landing a few meters from the mantis with his body now completely invisible. His eyes fixed on the stunned mantis, watching arcs of electricity dance across its twitching body.

Liu Xing jumped to a high branch and took position, his mind reeling from the encounter.

"Holy shit, I almost died," he muttered to himself.

Though not his first brush with death, this ranked among the most terrifying. One second late, and those sickles would have connected even if the electric bullet immobilized the spirit beast. Despite the near-death experience, his heart pounded with excitement, and a smile spread across his face. He had discovered another ability of his gun: Lightning Bullet! While not stronger than a normal round, it could stun enemies like his Lightning Palm technique.

"The bullet must have been my Lightning Palm technique converted into a bullet," he muttered.

A whole new world of possibilities opened before him. If this gun could convert techniques into bullets, it would revolutionize his fighting style. He wondered how other techniques might manifest as projectiles. Could he fire healing bullets? Curse bullets? The possibilities seemed endless.

Below, the mantis began to rise and Liu Xing cursed his distraction. He should have used its paralysis to deliver a killing blow. Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself. The situation had improved. He was invisible and possessed bullets capable of paralyzing it.

The creature swung its head left and right, clearly confused and unable to detect him. Liu Xing took aim, his finger resting on the trigger as he searched for the perfect shot. While he could paralyze it, he knew the spirit beast's body was too tough for normal bullets to penetrate. There had to be a weakness he needed to target.

"The eyes?" he wondered, noting their large size.

Though uncertain whether they'd prove as resilient as its carapace, Liu Xing found no better target. He aimed at its right eye, adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger.

The near-invisible bullet struck like lightning dead center in the yellow eye. The organ exploded, spraying blood onto the grass as the creature screeched, its antennae thrashing wildly. Seizing the opportunity, Liu Xing fired again, destroying the other eye. Another screech pierced the air as the mantis suddenly turned toward him. Its legs twitched—his position was compromised.

The mantis lunged at him, yellow liquid dripping from its ruined eyes. He steadied himself and fired once more. The bullet pierced its remaining eye and penetrated its brain, causing its head to explode. He crouched as the mantis sailed over him, its body twitching with dying neural signals. It crashed beside a tall tree with blood seeping into the roots.

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Drawing a deep breath, Liu Xing broke into a wide smile and jumped around like an excited child. Though he'd nearly died, his final execution proved flawless. The invisibility had worked perfectly!

As he wondered whether he had discovered all the gun's abilities, he felt qi emanating from it. The sensation resembled reloading, but this time his qi wasn't being absorbed. Examining the gun, he noticed gray stripes along its side beginning to glow, like a charging battery.

"Automatic reloading?" he wondered, raising an eyebrow.

To test his theory, he jumped down next to the mantis's corpse. He attempted to sense its beast core. While not all spirit beasts possessed cores, powerful ones did, and this mantis certainly qualified. Yet no matter how he tried, he couldn't detect one. He attempted to examine the remains of the mantis's head, but despite bloodying his hands, he found no core.

Looking at his gun, Liu Xing realized that it had absorbed the core and turned it into bullets. A useful ability, though somewhat wasteful. While the bullets would prove powerful, he could have sold the core to buy cultivation pills or items to accelerate his growth—since his Lightning Scripture Cultivation Manual prevented direct core absorption.

Leaping to a high branch, Liu Xing sat cross-legged to consider the implications. Though the gun was powerful, this ability seems incomplete. He might be missing something.

"The gun killed the spirit beast and converted its core into four bullets. "Liu Xing stroked his chin thoughtfully. Then, as realization came to him, his eyes widened. "The gun converts beast cores into qi! Does that mean I can absorb these bullets?"

His heart raced with anticipation. If true, this offered another path to cultivate beyond absorbing qi from the environment! Many cultivators used beast cores to achieve rapid growth but struggled to advance due to the qi's impurity. They required techniques or pills to cleanse it, and even then faced harder bottlenecks. But this gun was different. He was certain these bullets contained pure qi compatible with his cultivation method!

"Time to test it."

Closing his eyes, he began to cultivate. Rather than drawing qi from the air, he focused on the black gun in his lap. His perception revealed four glowing points of qi within. When he reached for this light, it leaped into him like lightning seeking a rod. He guided the qi toward his consciousness. In this world, there were seven cultivation stages: Lock Opening Realm, Core Splitting Realm, Sun Refining Realm, Sun Collapsing Realm, Black Sun Realm, White Sun Realm, and Immortal Realm. He was in the Lock Opening Realm, and to advance, he needed to open the seven locks that sealed his cultivation—hence the name of the Lock Opening Realm. As he directed the qi into his sixth lock, the lock readily accepted it!

Opening his eyes and coming out from his cultivation, he exhaled deeply and savored the caress of the wind. "This is amazing."

According to his calculations, nine more spirit beasts would fully open his sixth lock and advance him to the sixth realm of Lock Opening. He knew that ordinary talents typically took years to open a single lock, a process that had even taken him a considerable amount of time initially. However, with this new method, he could progress at a much faster pace. All he needed was more spirit beasts.

"Let's go hunt!" Liu Xing shouted.

He leaped away, body, mind, and spirit eager to face another spirit beast and came closer to the next realm!

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