Way of the Devil

When Luo Di was teaching his son the sword skill, he said with a smile that his body was already at the Great Master tier, however, he could do nothing if his skills could not be brought up to speed.

Shortly after he explained the content of the sword style in rough terms, Luo Di taught Lu Sheng a few basic moves in detail.

Then, he quickly noticed that he only had to teach his son twice, and the latter would already be able to grasp what he thought were highly difficult sword skills.

Whether it was his form or his technique in using his force, they seemed to be as easy as a pie to Lu Sheng.

This shocked Luo Di. Before they knew it, the morning had passed them by.

Luo Di taught Lu Sheng more and more sword skills. Before he knew it, he had taught all the basic sword skills in the morning. Lu Sheng had also remembered them all, including the way to exert force.

Lu Sheng’s body was not trained well enough, so he was unable to execute many of the sword skills perfectly. If that had not been the case, he would have been able to be on par against Luo Di after learning all the sword skills.

After lunch, Luo Di allowed Lu Sheng to rest for a while. He taught him new things in the afternoon.

After teaching him all the combat sword moves, the next step was for him to keep training so that he would improve his skills. There was no shortcut in fusing the sword skills with one’s reflexes. Repetition was the only way.

However, Luo Di felt that he did not have much time left. He started teaching Lu Sheng how to improve his body’s strength, energy, and agility in the afternoon.

The contents of these lessons were the topmost secrets contained within the sword style. After strictly forbidding Lu Sheng from teaching this to outsiders, Luo Di started to teach the first stage of the training method to Lu Sheng.

At the same time, he gave him a small bottle which contained black pills. He ordered Lu Sheng to take one after a certain period of training.

Lu Sheng had completely grasped the training method. Rather than a training method, it was much more of accelerating his body’s adaptation with the aid of the pills’ stimuli.

At dusk, Lu Sheng felt completely exhausted after dinner. He took a shower and retired to his bedroom. At the same time, he summarized what he’d learnt throughout the day.

He lay down on the bed and toyed with the small bottle which contained the pills. He replayed the memory of the sensation he’d felt after taking one pill.

His Divine Intellect Divine Lord’s spirit was much more powerful than before. His immense spirit continuously resounded within and scanned himself.

‘Some sword style this is. It’s practically a substance abuse style. The training of the body is completely reliant on taking pills?’ Lu Sheng quickly understood the theoretical effects of the pills.

These pills’ greatest effect was the unique stimulus it had on the body’s muscles. The effect was strong and long-lasting. It enabled the muscles in one’s body to become more balanced and powerful. However, it had a certain toxicity to it as well. The method of training one’s body taught by the sword style was to reduce the toxic effects of the pills to the lowest extent possible.

‘The increase in body strength is completely dependent on this so-called secret medicine.’ Lu Sheng scowled slightly. To him, such a method of completely relying on external substance to improve one’s body was the Wicked Path.

‘It requires the user to improve his body through taking this medicine. If the raw materials for this pill run out one day, won’t this skill be completely lost?’

“Deep Blue.” Lu Sheng summoned the modifier. He checked the contents of the frame. As expected, a corresponding sword skill frame appeared in the modifier’s interface after he learned the Gelailo Sword Style.

“Gelailo Sword Style, Initiation. (Special quality, strength increment).” That was the only special quality.

‘During the first stage, I’ll have to practice the method to train my body after taking one pill. On average, the human body needs four to nine weeks to completely digest the boost brought about by the medicine before it’s able to take another one.’ Lu Sheng remembered what Luo Di had taught him.

‘In other words, I’ll need one to two months to completely digest it. This is practically absorbing nutrients from the medicine to strengthen myself.’

Lu Sheng looked at Deep Blue’s frame. He quickly planned for his future progress. Mental Energy could not substitute matter. Hence, he had no choice but to rely on the pills to train and strengthen his body.

Throughout the next month, Luo Di had focused all his energies on training his son. He appeared hurried. When he discovered Lu Sheng’s terrifying talent, he planned to teach his son everything he knew in one go.

Other than his skills, experience, shooting skills, ridings skills, and the others, he even gave Lu Sheng a big bag containing various medicine and pills which he’d concocted himself. He told him that these were all the medicine he would need to train his body in the future.

Lu Sheng did not stay idle throughout the month. He had attempted to substitute the medicine’s effects with Mental Energy and Yang Essence, and while he failed, he discovered the best way to use Deep Blue.

The said method was to greatly reduce the time he needed to strengthen his body after taking one pill.

An ordinary person would need one to two months to completely digest the medicine. This period would also lengthen as one’s level increased. This was because the higher a person’s level was, the stronger the medicine that person would be taking.

Deep Blue was completely capable of using Mental Energy to aid him in the swift mastery of difficult training methods.

The unique training method of this sword style was the essence of the Gelailo Sword Style. Every tier had its own corresponding training method after taking the medicine to aid in the absorption thereof. If Lu Sheng was able to complete the entire set of moves, it meant that his body was already able to digest the medicine on its own, and the strengthening of his body was complete.

Deep Blue greatly amplified this training method with Mental Energy. This process was completed in an instant.

If Lu Sheng was not worried that Luo Di would notice something amiss, and thus refrained from using Deep Blue to accelerate his progress, he would finish up the bottle of pills Luo Di gave him ages ago.

With the passage of time, it was finally time for Luo Di to leave.

…

Evening. Cold night breeze blew.

Luo Di rode on horseback, with two strong servants accompanying him. He carried a white sack and waved toward his back.

“Go back, I’ll return soon. I’ve taught you everything I ought to. What’s left is for you to train and connect them.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll surely be greatly shocked when you come back.”

Outside the manor, Lu Sheng watched Luo Di’s slowly receding back with a bunch of old people from the manor.

A month of training had strengthened his body plenty, and he no longer appeared so frail that he could not withstand the blowing wind. He was now a highly capable young man with a slight sensual appeal.

“Mister Luo Di has left. Ah Sang, there’s a ball in the Adika Manor tomorrow morning. Won’t you come with me?” The girl from Meise Manor, Jia Lin, was here as well.

This girl was Luo Sang’s childhood friend. She had always doted on Luo Sang, treating him as her own little brother.

Luo Sang had a problem with his heart since he was young, and was a frail young boy who often fell sick. His skin that was as fair as polished jade added to his cuteness. Hence, Jia Lin, who was many years his senior, would often come over and take care of Luo Sang of her own accord. When they grew closer, they got used to this arrangement.

Recently, Luo Sang had attracted Jia Lin’s attention because he had been secluding himself as he worked hard on his sword training. Hence, she came over for a visit and to see if something bad had happened.

Lu Sheng shook his head.

“My body’s too weak. Now that it’s finally looking better, I can’t slack off. Sister Jia Lin, I might be spending less time with you after this.”

When Jia Lin heard this, she smiled.

“That’s good news. Your body has always been frail. I’ve advised you to train yourself before, but you wouldn’t listen. Now that you’re willing to train of your own volition, I can’t be any happier.”

Her looks were average. Her red hair stopped at her shoulders, and she had small clumps of freckles beside her nose, but she had a nice smile.

Jia Lin’s body was above-average. She had breasts bigger than most girls, while her waistline and the length of her legs were standard. Among the nearby manors, she was one of the beautiful unmarried women who had a striking point of her own.

Many had tried to matchmake her and Luo Sang. However, only the two of them knew that their relationship was more of kinship than love. Jia Lin filled the emotional void left behind by the absence of Luo Sang’s mother. The two of them resembled siblings and a mother and son at the same time.

“I know that training with the sword is difficult. With nobody looking after you in the manor, you must take care not to overdo it. It’ll be bad if you hurt yourself from overexertion,” Jia Lin instructed him.

“Don’t worry.” Lu Sheng nodded with a smile. The karma and wish of this persona, Luo Sang, was not to let the tragedy repeat itself and destroy the town.

By the looks of things, if he wanted to settle the karma completely, he would have to make sure that Luo Di would not die before destroying the town.

The objective of Luo Di’s current excursion should be to temporarily lure the monsters hunting them away. The time which he decided to go back and exact his revenge had not yet come. Lu Sheng had deduced this from the hidden military resources in the manor—many were still being prepared. Luo Di did not bring anything that was complete with him. He’d merely brought with him some short-term equipment. It was apparent that he planned to return.

‘He should be confident enough about returning without a scratch this time. However, I don’t have much time left. That bag of medicine is something Luo Di had prepared for himself. There should be enough of them to last me until the third tier. Although I’m not sure just how powerful the town’s monsters are, it won’t hurt to strengthen this body to its limits. I have Deep Blue, after all.’

After taking a pill, Lu Sheng had actually analyzed the theory behind this medicine’s effects via his Divine Lord’s spirit.

Through his analysis on his own body and the observations on his endocrine system, he noticed that these medicines for the different tiers actually had another, greater purpose than supplying nutrients. These medicines were actually forcing open some limitations and switches of the body.

When these switches were unraveled, the body would absorb nutrients in an unbridled and unlimited manner to strengthen itself.

Once the medicine lost its effect, the switches would close up once again.

For this reason, the ingredients of the medicines for the different tiers were actually similar.

Although Deep Blue could not directly improve his physical body, it was able to strengthen the training method, which in turn shortened the process of digesting the medicine. Deep Blue shortened the time needed for an effect to take place, which originally required a very long time to an extremely mind-blowing rate.

Since these medicines were different from what Lu Sheng had previously imagined as their main purpose was to control switches, this meant that as long as he had enough medicine, he would be able to continually strengthen his body with Deep Blue.

“Alright, I’m going back to training. Jia Lin, you should go back as well. It’s almost dusk.” Lu Sheng stopped his thoughts, and softly urged her to leave.

Jia Lin nodded. “Very well. I’ll come over to check on you sometimes. Take care of your body. Don’t overdo it and injure yourself.”

“Okay.”

Shortly after, Lu Sheng looked on as Jia Lin left on horseback. Accompanied by a few Meise Manor servants, she slowly made her journey back.

Lu Sheng turned around and scanned the crowd behind him.

“Alright, everyone. Everything will go on as it has all this while. I’ll be practicing with my sword in the morning. If there’s anything you need to see me about, please come in the afternoon. I should be in the garden area.”

“Understood, Young Master,” the crowd of farmers, smiths, and craftsmen replied.

Lu Sheng nodded with satisfaction, and strode toward the manor. Judging by the training medicine of the Gelailo Sword Style, the improvement of the user’s body was on an overall level. There were boosts to the user’s speed and strength, and taking the medicine enabled the user to constantly reach the body’s limits. However, a long time was needed to digest the medicine, and there was also the issue of toxicity lingering within the body.

Although the training method had a detoxifying effect, ordinary men would not be able to achieve complete detoxification.

This resulted in the lack of a fixed total amount that the practitioners of the sword style could consume throughout their lives. Toward the late stages, the toxins would start to constantly weaken the body. In addition to that, life would also start taking its toll. The result was that taking the medicine would actually weaken the body.

Hence, the degree of strengthening a user could obtain was also fixed. Moreover, the mysterious secret medicine was not able to unleash its complete might.

Lu Sheng planned to give it a try. He wanted to shorten the time needed to digest the medicine and see just how powerful it could make him.

Through Deep Blue, he was completely able to attain the theoretical limits of body strengthening of the Gelailo Sword Style.