Mixed Blessing System

As she approached that place that had a faint smell of iron in the air, that woman of beautiful proportions and blond hair carefully observed the area from above a tree branch.

She then noticed that there were bodies there, as well as signs of blood in various parts of the area. With that, she frowned her brow, feeling a bad sensation.

'It can't be them...' She thought of the people she had sent to chase a certain someone.

Those individuals had already failed to deal with their target. Still, this woman had given them the benefit of the doubt as the previous attempt had been in the middle of the city.

That place was naturally more difficult for someone to dispose of all their skills in an assassination attempt due to the chances of traces being left.

So, after finding out that Lothur would go out on a mission, she gave those three people one more chance to eliminate their target in this place where no one could stop them from using all their skills.

In any case, even though she had given them a chance to repair their previous failure, this woman did not fully trust those three. That's why she had pursued their tracks as soon as she freed herself from her responsibilities in Peters City.

However, even though she did not fully trust those people, this blonde woman had never thought she would encounter such a brutal scene as the one in front of her.

"That..." She looked in shock at the bodies of those people, seeing that the weakest individual there still had open eyes while blood dripped from the deep cut on his neck.

On the other hand, another corpse, besides having a hole made by the blade of a sword in the middle of his forehead, had his waist completely split, with his intestines lying on the ground.

Finally, the corpse of the strongest one was lying on its side, with a cut on its chest that looked as if an ax had made it due to the size of the wound.

'They all died brutally!' She noticed the look of awe on the faces of those individuals, not understanding how something like that could have happened.

'Who did this to them? Did they piss off some 5th Transformation cultivator?'

'Why would they do something like that? They just had to chase that good-for-nothing of Lothur!' She began to feel irritated, but since there was no one there, she just swallowed her anger before starting to collect the items left behind by those individuals.

"Tsk!"

'At least the person who defeated them left their spatial rings...'

"Uh?" She was surprised at her thoughts since it was customary in this world for someone to loot the bodies of their enemies.

Thinking about it, she could not help but find it strange that the person who eliminated these people did no such thing. 'Why didn't the assassin collect these items? Don't tell me he thinks he is too good to collect free coins?' She looked strangely at one of the rings already in her hands.

But without many details in that place to tell her exactly what had happened, this blonde woman was not slow to leave that area.

'The tracks on this path are confusing... It looks like a lot of animals passed through here earlier.' She looked in the direction of the rhino tracks from before.

'That scumbag probably passed through here before that!' She clenched her hands angrily, wondering what to do.

"Sigh..."

'All I can do now is head toward the closest Tooth Grass harvesting site from here. He will be near one of the places where this medicine grows!'

...

Six hours later...

After all this time in that cave, Lothur's body showed signs of life when a black goo stopped coming out of his pores and navel.

However, contrary to what had happened the last few times, the impurities that came out of his body on this occasion were about three times more significant than the last.

Because of this, his clothes were utterly soaked with that stinking substance, which had already formed a puddle on the cave floor next to the spider's corpse.

At the same time, the bruises he had gotten earlier, such as the cut made by one of the spider's claws, had already been regenerated. In fact, the condition of Lothur's body was better than ever, and now his muscles seemed even bigger and stronger.

Before, he looked like someone who had only trained a little to achieve an attractive body definition. But after this recovery, besides improving his skin's quality, his muscles gained volume and high definition, like that of natural bodybuilders on earth with a few years of training.

And while his conditioning was better than ever, his senses and bodily functions had also improved. After all, the spiritual cleansing not only affected his external appearance.

Arms capable of lifting hundreds of pounds of weight had to have, in addition to strong muscles, strong bones, efficient transport of gases and nutrients, etc.

For this, all organs had to evolve to maintain a cultivator's strength!

With that, Lothur's sense of smell was much sharper the moment, and he soon awoke from his unconscious state due to the strange odor in his surroundings.

'Uh?' He opened his eyes and saw the dark place he was in, quickly beginning to remember everything that had happened.

But before he could even get a chance to start stressing about his bad luck, something pleasant to look at appeared in his vision.

[Resistance to Iron-grade poisons acquired.]

'Oh?' Lothur's eyes blinked a few times, with him finding it amazing that he could get even that kind of thing.

But as he reasoned, Lothur did not think this was some kind of 'magic' from the system. 'My body recovers quickly, so it's not strange that I got a resistance to poisons after a poisoning...'

'In other words, the system is merely showing me the obvious!'

Just then, he saw his status.

[Name: Lothur Ritter]

[Physique: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger]

[Bloodline: ****]

[Cultivation: level 4]

[STR: 6.9] [CON: 8.0] [DEX: 6.0] [AGI: 7.9]

[INT: 30] [PER: 12] [WIL: 45]

Seeing this, he smiled in satisfaction, happier than ever to get a level advance right after starting his mission.

'Hmmm, looks like my advancement this time was not stimulated by my Physique.' Lothur pondered as he realized that the increase in his attributes had been slight compared to what he had experienced the two times his Physique had helped him.

Lothur, on the other hand, could not help but associate the significant increase in his Constitution and the improvement in Perception with the poisons he'd been exposed to.

'Did contact with those poisons improve my body's quality with that resistance? That must be the case.' He smiled, feeling tremendously good.

'That's crazy. I went through all that earlier, but now I feel so good.'

'The benefits of the risks in this world are tremendous.' He realized some of the reality of the cultivation world.

One would not always benefit from the risks one took. But every good opportunity comes with risks, and only those with the good fortune, bad luck, will, or need to face difficult situations could rise to the top and reap the rewards.

As for those who chose or were not forced to take risks, who accommodated themselves, well, they would never be exposed to excessive gains of the risks.

Realizing this, Lothur looks at his previous misfortune with a different mind.

He did not want to have to suffer all the time for gains. But he could see that as long as he endured the worst, sooner or later, he would reap tremendous benefits.

He could see that his start in this world could be painful, but once he improved his position, such situations would no longer be so frequent or necessary.

In other words, he was now suffering only to reap the future benefits!

In contrast, as Lothur calmly reflected on what he had done prior to entering this cave, he felt reassured about having violated his moral principles by killing other humans.

Those people had tried to kill him, and he had only followed his survival instincts.

How could he, someone with no experience in such situations, be guilty of not knowing how to control himself?

If his instincts made him kill those people, then the only ones to blame for that were the very individuals who tried to act against him in the first place!

If it were other situations, Lothur would try to use his rational side not to kill people. But in such an extreme circumstance, his enemies had attracted that terrible fate upon themselves.

Thinking about it, he soon felt less guilty for his actions.

"Sigh..."

'In any way, I should go back and check those people's belongings.'

'They're already dead, and I desperately need resources.' Then, he convinced himself, just before he got up from where he was standing and started to change his clothes.

After that, he looked in the direction of that spider and thought of something else...