Forge a path to success

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【Hungry Eel Headgear】

Rating: 1

【Origin: Mysterious Realm of the Underworld - Netherworld Divine Kingdom】

[Effect: A headgear that gathers the thoughts of a gluttonous demon; it can devour matter and convert it into energy.]

[Curse:]

1. This relic is a product of the Void and Heretical Path, and cannot be used by pure humans.

2. This relic is contaminated by heretics; possessing it will cause a constant feeling of hunger and loss of normal speech ability.

[Longing: So hungry I'd eat dirt]

(Note: I only had time to write this much today, sorry.)

Chapter 80 The Courage to Eat Stones!

In the blink of an eye, Chu Hengkong... eel... eel Chu Hengkong used his tentacles to hook Xiang Fuzi's basket and swallowed the mushroom plant roots and the wooden basket whole!

His bite force was astonishing; he could even bite through a basket reinforced with wire. In the blink of an eye, the basket disappeared into the eel's mouth, breaking into several pieces and flowing down its long head. Xiang Fuzi only heard a few gurgling sounds, and when she looked up again, the basket had vanished without a trace, leaving her only with a pair of hungry and innocent eyes.

Xiang Fuzi gaped, exclaiming, "How...how could this be? How could this happen?!"

"Eel." Chu Hengkong responded in a low voice, casually tossing the last piece of wood into his mouth.

He looked around and realized there wasn't much food left, so he leaped up and flew into the sky like a winged fish, disappearing out of the church.

"What is he going to do?" Xiang Fuzi asked in astonishment.

"Stop him!" Vande and Qisu ran over, trembling. "He used demonic power and still hasn't eaten his fill."

"Why didn't you say so sooner?" Xiang Fuzi was shocked. "Where did you go just now?"

Vande trembled: "That guy eats so ravenously, I'm afraid I'll be used as reserve food..."

Xiang Fuzi felt like her head was about to explode: "You... Ugh...! Demonic power! Is this something a human can use?! Won't this cause a disaster?! Come with me and chase after him!"

The two dashed out of the church and saw the townspeople gathered in the square, their faces filled with shock and panic. A sense of foreboding washed over them. Van der panicked and rushed into the crowd: "Chu Hengkong, wake up! Don't let hunger control you! No matter how hungry you are, you can't eat... um..."

Van der squeezed through the crowd, frozen in place. Qi Su, shorter than him, couldn't get through and grew increasingly anxious: "What did he eat?!"

"It's nothing..." Van der said weakly, "It's just that it's a bit impolite..."

Qi Su squeezed through the crowd, his heart pounding with fear, when suddenly everything went black. At the west end of the square stood a large tree, once a place for townspeople to rest and cool off. This tree had survived nearly two hundred years of wind and rain, but today it finally succumbed to its fate: a mysterious creature with an eel's head was perched on the tree, its long head pounding down like a woodpecker, sending splinters flying with each swing. It gnawed at the tree while circling it, and the tree shrank as if it were being peeled, shrinking to almost nothing in less than half a minute, becoming a sapling.

Qi Su shrieked, "Stop biting! Find another one!"

"Eel." Chu Hengkong got up from the wood chips and nodded apologetically to her. He curled up his tentacles, flew away from the tree trunk, ran towards another marker in the square, and climbed to the top of the Sakura Dragon statue.

Amidst a series of gasps, the eel head opened its mouth toward the head of the Sakura Dragon God.

"You wretched creature! Get down here right now!!"

Qi Su dashed to the statue and desperately tried to pull at Chu Hengkong's clothes, but couldn't budge them. Seeing the statue about to be destroyed, Fan De stepped forward, steeling himself, and unleashed his ultimate technique: Hypnosis!

"Dude, we should have some principles, at least we can't eat stones!" In desperation, Vande pointed west, "Go outside town! There's plenty of grass to eat outside!"

Chu Hengkong, already dazed and confused by the demon's mask, was now completely affected. "Eel!" A loud roar rang out, and the eel monster dashed towards the west side of the town, disappearing from sight in a few leaps. The townspeople breathed a sigh of relief. Qi Su, looking at the Cherry Dragon statue that had escaped death, discovered it was covered in eel saliva and burst into tears.

"Lord Sakura Dragon is impure!!"

Vande was furious: "Don't use such misleading language! Lord Sakura Dragon just got washed and is as clean as can be!"

Xiang Fuzi gazed into the distance, his eyes filled with a profound sense of weariness. A terrible thought lingered in his mind.

This grassland outside the town... could it be renamed wasteland from now on?

·

Two hours later, in a small wasteland outside the town.

"Eel eel eel eel eel eel eel".

Chu Hengkong sat cross-legged on the muddy ground, rubbing his head as he rested. Within a hundred-meter radius of him, not a blade of grass grew; anything edible had already been digested by the eel-head mask. After two hours of frantic eating, he had finally stored enough energy to remain normal for a while.

He walked back into the town, cupped his hands in greeting to Qi Su and Fan De, who were watching, and sighed, "Eel..."

Vande handed over a wooden sign: "It's really not an eel. I can't understand eel language. Can you write something?"

Chu Heng quickly carved a few words and held up the sign: [It can be moved, but not yet]

Qi Su felt a headache coming on: "You've eaten way too much! Does practicing bone-strengthening exercises really require that many calories?"

[Energy is prioritized for the bones] Chu Hengkong peeled off a layer of bark with writing on it, like peeling fruit, and added, [Only 30% goes into the stomach].

Vande noticed a problem: "Aren't you martial arts cultivators able to control every part of your body? You should be able to adjust the absorption efficiency, right?"

【…】

The eel-headed man silently turned away, while Qi Su grabbed his clothes and demanded, "Tell me! What happened?!"

[The more you eat, the better your bones will be.] Chu Hengkong put down the wooden sign and picked up a new one: [Progress is rapid, I can't bear to stop.]

"I really want to smash this martial arts idiot's head open with a stick..."

“That won’t do.” Vande shook his head and sighed. “The power of demons is a terrifying thing; using it for too long can lead to dependence. In the worst-case scenario, the Gluttonous Demon will be resurrected from Chu Hengkong’s body, and then…”

It stared at Chu Hengkong and said in a sinister tone, "You will really turn into an eel!"

Chu Hengkong was startled upon hearing this and couldn't help but take a bite of the writing board.

Qi Su snatched the writing board and slapped him hard: "Stop eating, you idiot! Forget about eel, you're practically turning into a pig!"

"eel……"

Chu Hengkong put down the sign and fell into deep thought. He had used the remnant flames of the demon before and naturally knew the dangers of such power, but the problem at hand was not only hunger, but also cultivation.

Regardless of the method, the bone-forging process has already begun; interrupting it midway is like forcibly suppressing growth, which will only do harm. To completely resolve the crisis, it is necessary to address the root cause of the problem…

He used his tentacles to write and draw on the ground, and soon produced a rough sketch of a human skeleton. A dozen or so bones were drawn too thick, making the whole drawing look very incongruous.

[Hunger stems from disharmony; if the bones are trained evenly, balance can be achieved even without training the spine.] Chu Heng wrote on the ground, [Since things have come to this, let's go all in and use this momentum to completely complete the bone-strengthening until we are no longer hungry!]

"But this ridiculous method you came up with yourself only works if someone beats you up," Vande said listlessly. "You beat yourself up all night yesterday and only managed to break a dozen or so bones. Where are we going to find 20 Shadow Giants to beat you up and feed you at the same time?"

Chu Hengkong pondered for a long time, then turned to look north, towards the mountains that isolated the town from the outside world. Thinking of the foxes dwelling on the mountaintop, he raised the wooden sign.

I have a plan.

·

boom! boom! boom!

Three booming sounds echoed up the mountain range, reverberating through the empty valley and rousing the Jade-Faced Fox and numerous other strange beasts from their slumber. The Jade Fox climbed to the summit, its beastly eyes piercing through the mist, instantly pinpointing the source of the noise. The sound indeed came from Singularity Z-3000-3; the tentacle-wielding man was lashing his tentacles against the mountain wall, clearly intending to take the opportunity to ascend the mountain.

The jade fox flicked its tail, a flash of yellow light appearing at the tip, and instantly a round stone fell from the summit of Yingluo Mountain. The stone raced down the cliff, growing larger and larger like a snowball. The boulder, carrying immense force, hurtled down the mountain, sending the tentacle-wielding man, who had sought his own death, flying far away!

Jade Fox listened with satisfaction to the sound of bones breaking and returned to the mountaintop to rest. But after only a short while, the sound of bones hitting the mountain wall came again. Jade Fox stared down the mountain and saw the tentacle man wearing a huge, disgusting headgear, not only shaking his head from side to side but also howling defiantly at the mountaintop: "Eel!"

The jade fox pushed down three huge rocks in one go, hoping to crush the monster to death this time. It listened intently for about ten minutes, making sure there was no more noise before returning to its den. But no sooner had it crouched down than the roar came again, accompanied by the man's incredibly arrogant shout: "Eel! Eel!"

"Awoooooo!!"

The jade fox howled to the sky, and rocks rained down the mountain with a series of crashes. Chu Hengkong was once again sent flying hundreds of meters by the rocks. He got up from the ground, satisfied with his improved muscles and bones, and then pounced on the rocks with the force of a tiger descending the mountain, manipulating the eel head to bite down!

The jade-faced fox could never have imagined that humans not only had the audacity to smash mountains, but also the courage to eat stones. So stones came pouring in, knocking the tentacle man away time and again, only to rise again after eating them, fearlessly facing the challenge amidst the fox's despairing howls…

“The more you get beaten, the stronger your bones become; the stronger your bones become, the more stones you can eat,” Van Der said. “The more stones you eat, the more beatings you can take.”

"He is truly a rare genius." Qi Su clapped in admiration.

"eel!"

Chapter 81 Venturing into the Deep Mountains Alone is Like Entering a Haunted House

There is no calendar day in the mountains, and the year is unknown in the cold weather.

In the blink of an eye, twelve working days had passed. During these twelve days, Chu Hengkong had completely integrated into the simple town at the foot of the mountain, living a simple life of working at sunrise and resting at sunset. Every morning, he would go to the square to listen to the poetry recitation at seven o'clock, and after listening to the poem, he would go down the mountain to provoke the jade fox to throw stones.

Mount Yingluo towered into the clouds, and the boulders, already imbued with the Jade Fox's monstrous strength, rolled down the mountainside with an impact even greater than the Shadow Giant's punch. For the first three days, even Chu Hengkong's immobility was insufficient to withstand the onslaught; a single contact sent him flying, nearly crushed under the rocks. However, thanks to the sheer power of the attack, his willpower was forced into his bones, causing his physical attributes to visibly improve.

From the fourth day onwards, Chu Hengkong stopped spitting blood after being knocked away; from the fifth day, he began to regain his footing; by the seventh day, even direct attacks from rocks couldn't shake him in the slightest, and he began to confront falling rocks head-on with his fists and tentacles; by the ninth day, he could pierce through the rocks using only brute force, without employing any techniques. And now, on the twelfth day…

"eel!"

Chu Hengkong charged forward with his head down, crashing into the massive boulder like a savage triceratops. His eel-like head smashed through the enormous boulder, and amidst the shattering sound of flying debris, he raised his head and let out a proud, majestic roar: "Eel-eel!"

The fox on the mountain remained silent, probably too angry to speak.

Chu Hengkong quickly finished eating the stones, then casually ripped off the eel headgear. Vande, keeping a distance, asked, "How was the result?"

Chu Hengkong patted his stomach, gazed at the distant mountains, and remained silent for a long time. He removed his hood and sighed deeply, "Finally, I don't have to eat stone eels anymore..."

Van der was shocked: "That ending of your sentence is very ominous! Did something worse than stone get swallowed up?"

Chu Hengkong coughed a few times, silently channeling his inner energy to dispel the demon's influence. He was truly overwhelmed with mixed feelings; no one could have imagined that a single lapse in judgment in changing the method would trigger such a series of problems.

In reality, over the years, dozens, if not hundreds, of the many prodigies who survived the modified bone-forging method of Longxiang Boxing have all been protected by their masters and made thorough preparations before daring to attempt the modification.

Unfortunately, Chu Hengkong's arm was a tentacle, making his body already unbalanced. This haphazard attempt at cultivation only made things worse. Without Ji Qiufeng's guidance, his survival this time was truly a combination of talent and luck...

Fortunately, he managed to get through this ordeal by chewing on stones. Now, except for the 24 vertebrae that he couldn't train properly, all of his bones have been trained. If he weren't in the unstable divine kingdom, he would have been able to try to advance to mutation point 2 long ago.

Chu Hengkong removed his hood, put on his coat, and waved his tentacles toward the mountaintop as a way of thanking the fox who had been helping him beat him up. He turned and headed toward the town. Vande jumped into his coat pocket with practiced ease, muttering, "That fox kept beating you up for 12 days, didn't you feel something was off?"

"What would insist on doing the same thing regardless of objective circumstances?" Chu Hengkong asked.

“Machinery,” Van Der said. “Machinery that was programmed long ago.”

"Have we seen enough machinery since we came to these deep mountains?"

Fan De seemed to be deep in thought, nodding frequently.

When Chu Hengkong returned to the town, Qi Su's chanting was still going on. He mingled seamlessly among the townspeople, listening to the long-standing, obscure poems.

In the past twelve days, he has heard half of "The Candlelight Poems," a myth about an old dragon turning into the sun; a part of "The Chaotic Tale of the Heavenly Demon," a classic tale of adventures by wandering warriors and knights; and the entire enduring "The Long Song of the Mortal World," stories about giants, light, and shadow that were once talked about with great relish by our ancestors.

As Chu Hengkong listened, he found it increasingly interesting and was happy to linger. The old stories, though difficult to pronounce, were undeniably entertaining; the chases between those gods, heroes, and demons, their origins uncertain, were like a storytelling performance from another world. If a pretty young girl were to tell stories in the teahouse every day, customers would surely be happy to attend, regardless of the quality of the tales.

Today's poetry collection again focuses on the three old friends' "A Long Song of the Mortal World," which tells the story of a cunning shadow who, wanting to play a prank, makes a bet with wise light to see who can solve the other's difficult problem. The shadow poses a simple riddle, which light solves immediately. But light poses an extremely difficult arithmetic problem, so difficult that even the shadow is bewildered by it.

It simply conceded defeat and made the same bet with the giant. The giant, a slow-paced fellow, chuckled and said, "You go first, Shadow. I am the greatest and most powerful being; my wisdom can solve your riddle."

The shadow then showed the giant the arithmetic problem it had obtained from the light. The good-natured giant stared at the problem for a long time, during which many dust islands disappeared and reappeared. Finally, it brought the light over, and the light solved the arithmetic problem in a flash.

"I won!" the giant announced happily.

"You asked an outsider for help, is that considered wisdom?" Shadow mocked.

"My super intelligence tells me to let the light help me," the giant said proudly. "The problem is indeed solved, so I am very clever."

The shadows laughed heartily, praising His wisdom. Then they discovered that the giant had generated many meaningless thoughts while solving the problem; these thoughts fell into the sea, leaving some creatures somewhat dazed. But these dazed beings also inherited the dust's virtues; when faced with difficulties, they knew how to ask others for help. Therefore, although they weren't very intelligent, they lived quite well, even better than the most intelligent creatures.

"...Solitary travel is foolish, gathering is wise. One person is weak, many are strong. Original spirits are pure, past events are like songs~"

Qi Su (in ancient Chinese, several times more complex than the previous text) finished reading the entire story. The townspeople bowed to the statue in unison and then dispersed. Fan De poked his head out of his pocket and said sarcastically, "I really need these bedtime stories. They're a true necessity of life. I don't know how I'd be a master of eye magic if I didn't listen to them."

"It won't hurt to listen," Chu Hengkong said dismissively. He went to the task board and took down the most recent tasks one by one. Recently, most of them were small jobs collecting miscellaneous items; it seemed that everyone had already killed all the monsters they wanted to kill, so there were no large hunting tasks.

"Have you recovered, brother?"

Chu Hengkong turned around and saw Xiang Fuzi looking over from afar. "He's basically back to normal," he said. Xiang Fuzi was relieved to hear this and congratulated him repeatedly. After chatting about this and that for a while, he whispered, "I have something I'd like to ask you for help with, brother."

"But it doesn't matter."

“A few days ago, I heard that you killed the centipede that was causing trouble in the mountains.” There was a hint of hatred in Xiang Fuzi’s eyes. “To be honest, I have a deep hatred for that poisonous insect. I can only feel at ease if I see its corpse. If you go into the deep mountains again, could you cut off a piece of that poisonous insect’s claw and bring it back to me?”

"Okay." Chu Hengkong nodded.

Xiang Fuzi was overjoyed: "In that case, thank you very much, brother!"

He walked away cheerfully, his steps seemingly lighter. Chu Hengkong couldn't help but ponder what kind of past a scholar would have to be at odds with poisonous insects. His first thought was naturally of his family being murdered, but judging from Xiang Fuzi's expression, that didn't seem to be the case.

He shook off his useless doubts and began packing his bags for the trip.

·

Deep in the mountains, in the old forest, all was silent. The tree canopies layered upon each other, like giant umbrellas covering the sky. A passerby broke a branch underfoot, making a crisp sound.

The sound of breaking branches echoed through the dense forest, and a furtive shadow approached. It was an ugly lemur, which silently descended from the treetop, its claws aimed at the passerby's head, and colorless wind blades spewed from its palms.