Also known as The Monsters, I Want You to Help Me Cultivate! and Slaying Demons: Starting by Killing the River God
Twelve taels of silver for a staged fight.
Chen Du gave four taels to his senior brother for bone-setting. To collect the remaining eight, he had to leave the ring alive.
Only after stepping into the ring did he realize the River God had no intention of playing along, and the temple priest had no intention of letting him live.
So Chen Du had no choice but to beat the River God to death.
After the River God breathed his last, a page from a broken bronze chart stirred to life in Chen Du's palm. While others killed demons for their gallbladders, skinned them, and sold their meat, he could take the creatures' signature abilities apart and train them into his own fists.
The catfish demon's slippery water coat became a boxing stance that let him redirect force; the iron claws that never released what they grabbed became a wrist-locking grappling technique. From then on, whenever Chen Du encountered a demon blocking his way, he always took a closer look first.
Did it have any abilities he could borrow?
Demons cultivated by eating people. He cultivated by using demons.
As for the secret techniques kept from outsiders by powerful clans, the paths that sects refused to offer, and the divine officials who charged people for the privilege of walking over them, there was plenty of time for all that.
First, he would get back the eight taels of silver he was owed.
