Although severely injured, the man, a Nascent Soul cultivator, didn't even spare Lin Yan, a Golden Core cultivator, a second glance.
However, the spiritual energy of this righteous cultivator was quite pure. Especially her face, it was truly beautiful. Even though cultivators were rarely ugly, he had to admit the beauty of the person before him.
He remembered he had a cultivation technique for absorbing vital energy. He'd obtained it after killing a few disciples of the Hehuan Sect. He'd casually tossed it into his spatial ring before, not being particularly interested in women.
But this female cultivator before him had stirred his desire to absorb her vital energy.
Absorbing the vital energy of such a pure spiritual energy female cultivator should restore seventy to eighty percent of his injuries.
The rest could be recovered faster by refining that Golden Core.
Lin Yan was unaware of the man's thoughts. Her sword techniques became faster and faster, and the man opposite her started to falter in his responses.
Lin Yan had already improved her understanding of swordsmanship in the trial grounds, and the man before her was the best test subject.
Her flying sword left many wounds on the man's arms and body, enraging him.
"You, you are a sword cultivator?" Only now did he realize that the person before him might be a sword cultivator, as Lin Yan's appearance was truly deceptive.
Lin Yan wore a blue immortal-stepping dress, which shimmered with light as she moved.
She looked less like a sword cultivator wielding only a sword and more like a refined young lady from a noble family.
"It's a bit too late for you to realize now," Lin Yan didn't stop her attack. Her long sword carved a hole in the man's body, an inch away from his heart.
Had he not dodged quickly enough, Lin Yan's sword would have pierced his heart.
"Junior, you're going too far!" He summoned numerous magical artifacts and hurled them at Lin Yan.
Lin Yan dodged them with her movement techniques. Her agility had been honed through countless battles, incorporating both modern cultivation world techniques and those she had collected previously.
She had integrated all these movement techniques, and it was no longer easy to injure her.
Unable to hit Lin Yan and continuously sustaining injuries, the man grew furious. Just as he was about to unleash more power to attack Lin Yan, a gush of blood erupted from the wound on his chest, halting his next move.
Lin Yan seized this opportunity and attacked the man again, thrusting her sword towards his Dantian. The injuries made his evasion a beat slower, and Lin Yan's sword plunged into his Dantian.
"You fell for it!" Seeing Lin Yan approach, the man struck at the top of her head with a palm.
Lin Yan had anticipated that he wouldn't surrender so easily and was prepared.
Her long sword left her hand, and Lin Yan immediately retreated, simultaneously manipulating her flying sword to twist within his Dantian.
The pain in his Dantian caused his accumulated spiritual energy to dissipate in his hand. This forced him to admit that he might indeed die here.
But he absolutely wouldn't die like this. If he were to die at the hands of this female cultivator, he would become her tool for fame.
Even in death, he wanted to drag Lin Yan down with him, making this genius her sacrifice. Moreover, there was a town of mortals below, who could serve as his escort to the afterlife.
Lin Yan sensed he was about to do something and immediately flew forward to stop his attempt at self-destruction.
"Let's die together!" Seeing Lin Yan approaching him with a serious expression, he laughed arrogantly.
"You're the one who will die, not me!" Lin Yan trapped the spiritual energy within his body with a formation, then her long sword shattered his Dantian, pulling out a somewhat ethereal Nascent Soul from within.
Having lost his Nascent Soul, the man spat out a mouthful of blood, staggered back two steps, and looked at the Nascent Soul in Lin Yan's hand with utter unwillingness.
"Is this the Nascent Soul? It's nothing special!" With that, Lin Yan directly crushed the Nascent Soul.
"No!" He was powerless to stop it and spat out another mouthful of blood.
Seeing him completely drained of spirit and energy after losing his Nascent Soul, Lin Yan immediately used her sword to sever his head.
She found a box, placed his head inside, then took all his storage items. Finally, she used fire to burn his corpse to ashes.
And so, the rather arrogant character from the original story, who had caused the male protagonist quite a bit of trouble, met his end.
By killing him, she had changed the fate of everyone in the town below.
Lin Yan saw the plot alteration progress bar move forward again and contentedly prepared to return to the inn.
Back on the town's streets, she found that the man's arrival had not affected the lives of the people here. The streets were still lively, with music coming from restaurants and teahouses. Lin Yan decided to find another eatery to settle her lunch.
This time, Lin Yan did not choose to provoke the beggars again, opting instead for a quiet private room in a teahouse.
Lin Yan ordered a pot of tea and a few plates of pastries, then leaned by the window, watching the bustling human world below.