"Seeing that you can talk, it seems you're feeling better," Yang Qing said as he used his palace sense to monitor his internal structure. His breathing though weak had a stable rhythm to it and some vitality was being restored throughout his body with every breath.

Yang Qing had managed to eliminate all existing sequela in his body, including the one that was left behind by the technique that shattered his dantian. With everything cleared up, it would only take a few hours before the man's body was restored to complete health.

Even if he would still have a crippled cultivation base, his body had already been cleansed and strengthened by the lightning tribulation he faced during his breakthrough to the core formation realm. The benefits that cleansing brought, were still there.

Other than losing all his ability to manipulate or store qi in his body and losing all chances of achieving a breakthrough in his realm, he still enjoyed some privileges of being a core formation expert like a strengthened body that still had the vitality and conditioning of a core formation expert.

Everything from his skin down to his internal organs had the sturdiness of a sky-grade artifact and his body's own reflexes guaranteed he could still hold his own against a peak-stage foundation establishment expert and even some first-stage core formation experts that had weak foundations and accumulations.

In addition to the body's base strength, he still had a core formation expert's life expectancy since the life expectancy of a cultivator was tied to the world's fundamental dao rules and not whether his dantian was intact or not. The only reason those with broken dantian usually lived shorter lives was because of the internal injuries that came with the dantian getting shattered. As long as one resolved them, even with a shattered dantian, one could live to the end of the lifespan they had when they still had their dantian intact.The man Yang Qing just saved, based on his preliminary estimates, was someone who had reached the middle stages of the core formation realm. While Yang Qing couldn't tell what type of core he had, with the knowledge pool he built from his clan's specialty on the body refining stage, he could tell that the man had achieved a gold body in his body refining stage. That coupled together with his cultivation base, gave the man a base lifespan of 4,000 years. Even without using the heart stone steele, Yang Qing could tell that the man had atleast 3,000 years left in his lifespan.

He couldn't help but wonder what pushed a person like him to this point. With the effort he clearly put to reach where he was, taking his life and in the most gruesome of manners at that, couldn't have been done lightly.

…

"Are you hungry?" Yang Qing politely asked.

The man gave no response and didn't seem like he had any intention of conversing with Yang Qing as he closed his eyes.

Yang Qing only smiled at his actions and decided to focus his attention elsewhere. With the man's life out of danger, he could now place his attention on the lake before him that had dense yin energy, a yin mist form Hornwort, a starlight crab that was at the core formation realm, and schools of redears and bluegills that had a white luster like the moon's radiance.

The lustre was most likely as a result of longtime exposure to the yin energy coming from the yin spirit meridian at the bottom of the lake. Any single one of them could freeze a qi formation expert solid, within three breaths if they tried to catch them, let alone eat them, but to Yang Qing they were delicious delights that would pair well with his spring water rice wine.

Yang Qing being honest to his needs waved his sleeves and a third of them were pulled out of the lake unaware their lives were about to be cut short. Yang Qing regretfully looked at the remaining redears and bluegills that were still in the lake as he shook his head in resolve against taking more.

He spared them out of a false sense of altruism though deluded, it was part of his maxim to always leave behind a few seedlings for continuity.

He always told himself it was his way of respecting nature, but in the real sense he only did what he did, because he never wanted to lack food to eat when he was on the road. It was always comforting to know one had food nests stashed all over the continent.

Yang Qing gingerly whistled as he carefully stored his catch in a bucket filled with blue-green water. He had left the bucket unattended as he swaggered into the lake but seemingly realizing something, he went back, grabbed the bucket, and threw a look of disdain, Ellie's way.

"No one can be trusted," Yang Qing mumbled in reproach as he calmly made his way into the middle of the lake where the yin mist form hornwort was located along with the starlight crab.

"Ellie, make sure to keep a close eye on him," Yang Qing coldly said, halting Ellie in her steps who was well on her way to grab the remaining redears and bluegills in the water.

Seeing Yang Qing's threatening look, she could only begrudgingly agree as she lowered her head in defeat.

"Mmph, how dare you have designs on what I Yang Qing have decided to spare," Yang Qing righteously thought as he widened his gait sauntering off into the depths of the lake. The lake's water seemed like it was giving way to him with every step he took.

It didn't take him long to reach the yin mist form Hawthorne's location. The starlight crab that was right next to it, menacingly raised its claws the moment it sensed Yang Qing's presence.

It was small in stature, about palm-sized,and had a blindingly white carapace that had a faint golden radiance to it. The source of that golden radiance was minuscule golden motes of light spread all around its body. Those mots of light resembled stars.

"There, there, little one. I'm not here to steal your treasure, I just want to take a look at the ground below it," Yang Qing gently transmitted his thoughts to the starlight crab in an attempt to coax it. However his attempt seemed to have fallen on deaf ears because the starlight crab immediately attacked him the moment he crossed the hundred-meter mark to the yin mist form hawthorne.

It charged with fierce momentum as it swung its claw in an upward motion. Dozens of thin wavelike golden streaks were produced from its swinging motion. The streaks had a ferocious sharpness to them, that they even seemed to cleave the water into pin sized droplets as they made their way to Yang Qing. Its speed was nothing to scoff at either, as they crossed the hundred-meter gap between Yang Qing and the starlight crab in milliseconds, to the point it seemed like they had been teleported from the starlight crab to Yang Qing's position.