Way of the Devil
Chapter 679: Expansion 2

Lu Sheng casually swept his gaze across the faces of the Jade Fox Tribesmen. Wisps of White Feather Pure Qi diffused into the ground from under his feet. Then, they made their way toward the Jade Fox Tribesmen.

"Pchht! Pchht! Pchht! Pchht!"

With four soft swooshes, the four Jade Fox Tribesmen suddenly paled and fell backward.

"Big Brother!"

"Brother Qiong!"

The two remaining hunters were immediately frightened. They hastily went forward to support their fallen brethren.

This sudden change surprised the Clear Crane Sect's Taoists as well. Somehow, their opponents seemed to have been hit by some demonic art as they fell down without warning.

Lu Sheng walked up to the cold spring. The spring water surged within a little rock pit. The clear waters released bone-chilling coldness, but a faint fragrance filled the air. It was like the smell of flowers. It was faint, but difficult to ignore.

He stooped down and touched the water with his hands. The cold sensation traveled along his finger.

"Is this the cold spring?"

One of the Taoists hastily stepped forward, and answered, "Yes, it is, Senior Apprentice Brother Hezhen! We've been using this to cultivate the cold seed, but the Jade Fox Tribe…"

The others could now clearly tell that the sudden collapse of the Jade Fox Tribesmen was certainly connected to lord Hezhen.

These Taoists sighed internally in relief. Since lord Hezhen was this powerful, this cold spring would surely end up being theirs.

Everyone had thought that the matter would escalate to the point where the three great seniors would take notice and eventually settle it. With lord Hezhen here, the effects were the same.

"You've killed our… our brethren!?" The Jade Fox Tribesmen finally noticed that the fallen tribesmen were no longer breathing. Their expressions changed greatly.

"Spare me the chatter!" Lu Sheng stood up. Since he began preparing his plans, he had no need to hold back for now.

He grabbed at the air with a hand. A cluster of white Qi erupted between his fingers and swiftly enveloped the remaining two Jade Fox Tribesmen.

The white Qi dissipated quickly enough. The remaining two tribesmen instantly lost their breath, and they fell to the ground, unmoving.

A killing method such as this made even the Clear Crane Sect's Taoists shocked.

"Alright, this matter is settled. If the Jade Fox Tribe gives you any more trouble, look for me directly." Lu Sheng was currently fretting about finding a reason to expand Clear Crane Sect's territory.

With the Moon Prince Mansion as the center, he wanted the Crane King Cave to expand swiftly and devour the tribes within several thousand miles.

The remaining Taoists wanted to speak, but held their tongues. They killed someone and did nothing to cover it up. Was this not asking for the other tribe to come back for revenge?

Lu Sheng, however, did not care about this. He swiftly returned to the Taoist temple. He produced his newly procured Rock Path's Mountain Moving Art and went over it carefully.

This new major sutra mainly cultivated two external meridian points. It was slightly better than the White Feather Mantra, but not by a huge margin.

The two new external meridians were the muyuan and the zhuoqing.

The zhuoqing was located in the middle of the neck near the laryngeal prominence. It was a very sensitive spot.

When Lu Sheng returned, he immediately ordered six of his 12 crane demons to go and sweep across the minor demon tribes in the vicinity.

This included the Jade Fox Village.

The six crane demons moved out at the same time. They carried out Lu Sheng's orders sternly, and had little empathy for humans. The Jade Fox Village was wiped out within a day; the casualties numbered more than 200. However, the crane demons had also paid the price, having one dead and one injured.

This shocked Lu Sheng slightly. He knew that his current strength was still too weak.

Then, it was the Iron Rat Tribe and the White Wolf Tribe. They were small tribes that stayed nearby. However, they did not have many demon elites among their ranks. The crane demons easily chased away or killed off the resisting forces.

As time went by, the Clear Crane Sect's territory expanded.

Lu Sheng, on the other hand, announced that he would go into secluded cultivation. The peculiar mark left by the Clear Prince had extorted a huge price from him before he could successfully deal with it.

It should be known that his competence was only slightly more than 1,000 years. However, about one-tenth of his cultivation base had been easily damaged by a simple mark.

The difference in strength between them made him feel slightly weighed down.

That was why he was in such a hurry to rank up.

In no time, the crane demons scoured the small tribes in the vicinity and presented him with the spoils.

Two of them were sutras which resembled major sutras. However, the Yin and cold major sutras seemed to be the same kind, and the methods of cultivation were largely similar.

Lu Sheng went through them casually. However, only the major sutra given by the hermit Yuhong was completely genuine. Every outlined step was connected to the previous step. A small move would affect the outcome of the entire situation, and nothing in the bigger scheme of things could change this.

Although the amount of information was not much, it should have been enough to derive the White Feather Mantra.

Lu Sheng ordered his men to search for Taoist tomes and sutras from the Moon Prince's mansion as well while his crane demons continued to search for similar items in the Clear Crane Sect.

On the other hand, he hid inside the underground karst cave, and began to derive the cultivation method.

**********

Bean-like flames wavered in the wind.

Lu Sheng sat alone on the ice-cold rock table. He held an oval pebble which seemed to be painted with a bright red dye.

Cold airflow would blow through the karst cave every now and then. Normally, the cave would have been filled with icicles by now. However, this karst cave was now filled half with hot air, and half with cold air.

Lu Sheng fixed his gaze on Deep Blue's interface before himself.

'I didn't expect this… I didn't expect this at all…' The pebble in his hands was an ancient rock tool confiscated from the Jade Fox Tribe. It was said that it had been around for several thousand years, and was worshipped by the tribe.

Because of this, the pebble was now supplying him with a ceaseless amount of Mental Energy.

The Mental Energy practically surged into his body at the rate of 10,000 units per second.

Lu Sheng had initially thought that the benefits from expanding his territory would be obtaining more information. This unexpected benefit was something he had never thought of before.

What shocked him was that many of the tribes here seemed to have the same custom of ancestral worship.

With ancestral worship, various kinds of ritual tools were developed.

Every single tool held great meaning to Lu Sheng.

'Looks like I'll have to mainly rely on this as the source of Mental Energy in the future.' Lu Sheng closed his eyes slowly and looked at the current White Feather Mantra's frame.

Half a day had passed.

Lu Sheng had absorbed Mental Energy from dozens of antiques. The quantity of Mental Energy varied between objects. His store of Mental Energy was now nearly 3,000,000 units!

This made him realize that the depths of this world's hidden secrets far exceeded his expectations.

"I've only expanded my territory slightly, devoured three tribes, and already I've gained such huge benefits…" Lu Sheng exhaled. He pushed the modify button under the modifier.

The interface shook and went into modifying mode.

He immediately looked at the White Feather Mantra's frame. As expected, a new derive button had naturally appeared behind the White Feather Mantra.

'Begin derivation.' He swiftly focused his attention and pressed the derive button.

The entire frame blurred.

A moment later, the frame regained clarity.

"Unknown mantra, Full-mastery. Competence, 1,360 years. (Special traits. Strength, rank-1. Unloading force, rank-1. Real Undead, rank-1.)"

"Hm? Real Undead?" Lu Sheng was suddenly stunned. He had just derived the White Feather Mantra, and suddenly a brand-new special trait had popped up.

From the name given by the modifier alone, this Real Undead did not seem to be an ordinary thing.

'The reduction in my Mental Energy has increased… I've only derived this once, and it's taken 5,000 units of Mental Energy…' Lu Sheng noticed another abnormal thing.

His expression changed slightly. He instantly spread out his powerful spirit over his entire body, and carefully observed the minute changes that would occur.

'Derive it by another rank.'

He focused his attention and pressed the derive button again.

"Pchht…"

The frame disappeared again.

This time, 10,000 Mental Energy units disappeared.

The frame remained blurry for more than 30 seconds before slowly clarifying again.

"Unknown mantra, Full-mastery. Competence, 821 years. (Special traits. Speed, rank-10. Strength, rank-2. Unloading force, rank-5. Real Undead, rank-2.)"

'There's another one…' Cold crept into Lu Sheng's heart.

Currently, his spirit clearly sensed that the Mental Energy within his body mysteriously disappearing. In its place was a life magnetic field, which naturally and slowly unfolded behind his head.

The life magnetic field orbited swiftly and converged wildly in a point about an inch behind his head. It quickly formed an invisible micro vortex.

'Is this the Real Undead?' Lu Sheng guessed in his mind.

He had a vague feeling that he probably stumbled upon one of the greatest mysteries of this world.

This new Real Undead might very well be the entity that devoured his Mental Energy.

'I'd like to see just how much Mental Energy can this Real Undead absorb!' Lu Sheng steeled his resolve.

He pressed the derive button again.

This time, the frame blurred and clarified only after 20 minutes.

"Unknown mantra, Full-mastery. Competence, 520 years. (Special traits. Speed, rank-20. Strength, rank-3. Unloading force, rank-8. Real Undead, rank-3.)"

At this point, Lu Sheng looked for the derive button again. However, he noticed with shock that there was nothing behind the frame.

'In other words, this cultivation method is already at the highest derivable rank by Deep Blue based on the materials I have. As for my decreasing cultivation base, it's just a matter of my original competence being purified and condensed as the cultivation method is ranked up and strengthened. With the increase in concentration, and maybe even some substantial changes, it's only natural for it to decrease.'

Lu Sheng sighed slowly.

He spat white Qi from his mouth. It also contained some faint aroma.

He raised a hand. He saw that his body was already covered in a layer of pure white feathers.

He closed his eyes and immediately 'saw' with his powerful spirit that the micro vortex behind his head was like a transparent gemstone with countless root-like tendrils extending from it into the space around him.

It was as if these tendrils were absorbing certain materials from space.

'My Pure Qi is so heavy now…' He extended his hand and tapped the air. A wisp of Pure Qi flowed slowly out of his fingertip onto the floor.

His Pure Qi could not even float, let alone merge with the air. However, it had no problems merging with the earth.

Lu Sheng scanned his body with his spirit several times. However, he could not sense any other great changes besides a strengthening of his constitution.

Still, he vaguely felt that his life's rank had changed substantially.

There seemed to be many formless chains connected to himself, coming from the space. With the improvement of his cultivation method, half of these chains broke.

"Little Zhen," he suddenly called out softly.

"Father." In an instant, a white silhouette appeared and fell to the ground on one knee. It was the crane-headed demon Little Zhen.

"Pay a visit to the Clear Prince Mansion…" Lu Sheng slowly opened his eyes. "Probe it. If there's nothing of concern, kill the Clear Prince."

"Understood! I will make sure he's dead!" said Little Zhen solemnly.

"Come here," Lu Sheng beckoned softly.

Little Zhen slowly walked closer and stopped at an arm's length.

Suddenly, the vortex behind Lu Sheng's head produced several threads, which slowly penetrated the back of Little Zhen's head.

At the same time, a huge amount of Pure Qi surged wildly into his body. In an instant, more than 500 years' worth of competence silently and completely surged into Little Zhen's body.

"Alright. Go." Lu Sheng would like to see what this Real Undead was.

Little Zhen had no idea what had just transpired. He slowly retreated and vanished with a swoosh.

'If my guess is correct… Then this time… I'm sure to be able to gain insight on the reincarnation heart and condense the reincarnation spirit!'

The Pure Qi within Lu Sheng's body swiftly recovered. In less than a few breaths, his Pure Qi was restored.

'Now, for the Clear Prince…' Killing intent flashed across his eyes.