Way of the Devil

The sky was gray when Lu Sheng walked out of the temple. Thunder roared in the distance, and occasionally, a purple arc of lightning flashed in the thick clouds.

Lu Sheng walked down the stairs in front of the temple, toward the carriage waiting for him in front.

He flipped onto the car, and then was greeted by the smiling face of Elder Zhang Shilong, who was sitting quietly with a cup of hot tea between his hands.

“How did it go? Everything went well?”

“Everything went well,” Lu Sheng answered as he got on the car. “Aside from someone who called himself the inspector who seemed strange. Looked like some shady business to me.”

“Oh?” Zhang Shilong blanked out for a moment. “The inspector? The Song Family, wasn’t it? That’s their normal tactic. Just try to ignore it if you encounter them.”

“Why? Are they really powerful?” Lu Sheng raised his eyebrows.

“The Song Family is one of the two most powerful families in our Autumn Moon County branch. You are a prodigy with a Scarlet Jade tier rating, so just try your best not to provoke them. You have no need to face them head on. You will move up to the upper sect eventually.” Zhang Shilong shook his head. “Almost one-fifth of this branch’s disciples are from the Song Family. Sometimes, people in charge are forced to make certain accommodations.”

“Understood.” Lu Sheng nodded.

“That will be the best for your future. They are like an emperor who could only reign in this tiny countryside and nowhere else, while you have the potential to reach for the sky. Your strength lies in your future, no need to fight them head on right now.”

“I understand.” Lu Sheng nodded.

***

“Cough, cough, cough!”

Inside the temple, the staggering shape of the white-clad inspector appeared. He immediately fell forward—clearly exhausted—and exposed his blood-soaked back.

He coughed violently, clearly severely injured.

“What happened?” said a man in a white robe, resting with his eyes closed to the side of the main temple. He opened his eyes and stared at the inspector strangely.

“I miscalculated.” The inspector managed to prop up his body with a cough.

“What about the young master? Did he succeed?” The silver-robed man sensed that something was wrong.

“He should be fine. Someone nearly grabbed it before him, though,” the inspector said with a low voice.

“…”The silver-robed man stood up slowly and frowned. “How much manpower did we put in to arrange this? Yet, we still nearly lost it to someone else?”

“I couldn’t do anything. The candidate this time, that man named Lu Sheng, is monstrously powerful!” The inspector’s eyes darkened as he thought back to their battle. “His body is extremely powerful, his strength is above average, and I couldn’t even match his speed. He nearly stole the young master’s gem. He was too fast—he maze didn’t slow him down at all.”

“Lu Sheng… the prodigy who got a Scarlet Jade tier rating? I know him.” The silver-robed man frowned even deeper. “Zhang Shilong already took notice of him. Even the sect master is interested in this Scarlet Jade tier prodigy. Don’t provoke him further, at least for now. This doesn’t matter, anyway, as long as the young master passes the test successfully.”

“But…” Hatred and regret flashed across the inspector’s eyes.

“There are no buts. Remember your place. You, too, understand what Scarlet Jade tier entails. The sect won’t alienate someone who will eventually reach Earth Prime just for a man like you who has already nearly exhausted their potential,” the silver-robed man said flatly. “I know you won’t be happy about this, but there’s nothing we could do. Go choose something from the family’s B tier treasury. Sometimes, we are forced to endure things we despise in our life.”

The inspector held onto the wall and straightened his body, his chest rising and falling heavily. He nearly got killed, and how did the family that he had loyally served react? They threw away some trivial treasure, and tried to sweep the whole thing under a rug.

He served the family loyally and diligently for so many years, yet they wanted him to “endure” because of some Scarlet Jade tier?

A fire burned in the chest of the inspector, an unexplainable fire.

“You may leave now. Rest until your wounds heal. Regarding this incident, neither the sect nor the family will support you,” the silver-robed man said in a low voice.

“I understand…” The inspector stayed silent for a few moments, then slowly walked out of the main temple. Soon, he disappeared from view.

The silver-robed man stood alone in the empty main temple, and again sat down quietly.

“Lingbo,” he suddenly whispered.

“I’m here.” A woman wearing a similar robe appeared next to him with her head bowed low in respect.

“Go to Master Lu and express our Song Family’s apology. Also, figure out his attitude toward the young master. Establish a good relation with him, if at all possible.”

“Yes, sir.” The silver-robed woman nodded and retreated, then disappeared in midair in the blink of an eye.

***

In a delicate courtyard at the center of the county capital.

Lu Sheng sat in his study room, reading a newly borrowed Great Yin history book.

“Young Master Lu, someone from the Song Family wishes to visit.”

“Song Family?” Lu Sheng immediately thought of Elder Zhang Shilong’s talk about the inspector and Song Du. He hesitated a bit. “Let him in.”

“Yes, sir.” Although the servants were all arranged by Elder Zhang Shilong, the establishment was the private vacation home of another elder. Even the Song Family wouldn’t try to invade another elder’s home so disrespectfully.

The servant retreated, and quickly brought back a masked woman wearing black gauze.

Lu Sheng rose and opened the door to greet the woman.

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Song Lingbo, and I hope Master Lu could forgive us for our actions during the test. This is a little token of apology from us, please accept it.” The woman didn’t waste time with small talk, and presented a little circular black box.

Lu Sheng was a little surprised. The Song Family somehow reacted to this whole incident with diligence, and even sent a gift despite being a massive family. With organization like that, it was not luck that brought them to the position they were at.

“Lady Lingbo is too kind. What happened today was just a misunderstanding. I’m happy to accept your gift.” Lu Sheng wasn’t modest at all, on the other hand, and happily accepted the gift.

“Rest assured, Young Master Lu. The Song Family would like to cooperate with Young Master Lu in the future. The Black Seal Temple will no doubt provide many such opportunities. This incident was only an oversight. Random people with improper intentions are bound to be mixed with us in such a large family.”

Her face wasn’t pretty, but had a soft quality to it. Her eyes were curved, which looked nice when she smiled. She didn’t have the usual arrogance of someone from a powerful family. Instead, one could feel an affinity like the spring wind.

He voice was soft and light too, without a single trace of arrogance. With all of these traits, she almost always succeeded in her diplomatic endeavors.

Lu Sheng had a good impression of her as well. “If everyone from the Song Family has such a soft manner like Lady Lingbo, I am very much inclined to cooperate.”

“Young Master Lu is too kind.” Song Lingbo smiled upon confirming that his attitude wasn’t too extreme, which was enough. That way, he could be befriended with benefits or other methods. Even if that failed, he at least wouldn’t become an enemy.

“I will leave Young Master Lu to rest, then.”

“Have a safe journey, Lady Lingbo.”

Lu Sheng accompanied her to the gate and watched her leave. Then, he turned back to his room, and opened the little box.

He didn’t even care about the servant, and directly opened the box.

“Puff…”

A bone-chilling air slowly flowed out from the box. In the middle of the box sat a deep purple pearl-like orb.

The orb was only about the size of a fingernail, but had a strange chill throughout its body. Lu Sheng’s fingernail had frost appear on it as soon as he took it out.

“Ziying Orb?!” the servant waiting by the door exclaimed.

“Ziying Orb?” Lu Sheng remembered this orb from a record. It was neither a special treasure nor a rare herb, but rather just common currency that was popular in the Great Yin. It was one of the many currencies that could be used for trade.

One Ziying Orb could be exchanged for 10 Hongying Orb, which could in turn be exchanged for over a hundred ounces of Devil Gold in any bank.

Devil Gold was a currency exclusive to the Great Yin, popular among its noble families and upper classes as a special currency. It was completely different from normal gold and silver that ordinary mortals used, and couldn’t be exchanged for normal gold or silver, either.

The most direct uses of Devil Gold were for buying Secret Arts, treasures, and even shards of Divine Weapons.

Lu Sheng read from a record that the Divine Weapon shards were separated into tiers. The top-tier ones were chips that fell directly from the original Divine Weapon and retained a majority of its power. The bigger the shard, the more it would cost.

The lowest tiers were the small shards that only had a sliver of power left in them. Those couldn’t be made into Holy Weapons nor embedded into normal weapons. The only use they had was to embed it into a person’s body to strengthen the user’s bloodline with the tiny amount of radiation that they emitted.

As for Devil Gold, 1000 pieces of it could purchase the lowest tier and the smallest Divine Weapon shard.

“What a precious gift.” For someone with a bloodline, the more shards around, the better. No one was going to complain about having too many shards.

Lu Sheng understood how precious the gift was. He nearly robbed the gem they prepared, and almost killed someone working for them as well, yet he was the one to get a gift of apology.

He put away the Ziying Pearl, and ordered the servant to boil water. After getting his new clothes ready, he went in to take a hot bath.

He also started to assess his current situation while he was bathing.

He didn’t plan to use Devil Essence, liquid Inner Qi, nor the strong body of the Ultimate Eight-Headed Devil Way at all, so he hid all of them. Those could very easily expose his identity.

The only thing he had access to was his Bind level single vein body and the True Qi he’d started cultivating not long ago.

If he utilized all his True Qi, his skin would be covered by blood-colored veins. His strength and speed would also be increased at the same time. If he further sped up the circulation of qi and blood, even his reaction speed would be increased.

‘In reality, the Great Yin as a whole seems to be focused on True Qi techniques. Different True Qi techniques improve the body in different ways, while also having different special killing strikes. No one could account for every single one of them in their defenses. But these True Qi techniques start to develop bloodlines as its focus past the Bind level. This is basically an upgraded version of the Great Song’s Hundred Lineages,’ he thought with his hands on the side of the barrel.

‘At this point, I have reached a bottleneck, and if I want to improve further, I need to start focusing on developing my bloodline. My bloodline is part of the Yuanguang Family’s burning blood, not to mention that it’s also extremely diluted and has very little potential. The amount of Essence Qi that I need to improve it probably unfathomable.

‘So…’ He remembered the Ziying Pearl he’d received. ‘A better way to go might be to earn as much Devil Gold as possible to buy compatible Divine Weapon shards to implant into my body to receive a new bloodline.’

There was a big market for implanting new bloodlines in the Great Yin too. People doing this kind of business usually provided service to the family members of big families with low tier bloodlines. They had enough money and resources to trade for Divine Weapon shards, and the resulting bloodlines usually far exceeded those of ordinary people.

But using divine weapon shards to nourish bloodlines was an endless money sink. The money and resources needed were unfathomable to the ordinary people. The ordinary human body and regeneration speed weren’t enough for implanting Divine Weapon shards, anyways. They had to reach a certain level of cultivation, and also possess a body suitable for bloodline, and even then use countless amounts of precious ingredient to strengthen and nourish their body.

After the shard was implanted, massive amounts of special resources would be required once again to negate the potential side effects. The horrifying amount of spending required meant that normal noble families could sustain one or two people at most, and they might even go broke even at that.