Way of the Devil

This negative sensation quickly disappeared. Lu Sheng examined his whole body but found nothing amiss. At his current level, his control of his body has reached a state that was unimaginable to ordinary people. His martial arts like his hard body skills had trained his control of his major muscle groups, while Prime Devil Sect’s secret arts system had trained his precise control of smaller muscle groups.

Hence, Lu Sheng knew every inch of muscles and organs within him like the back of his hand.

That was why he felt that bizarre and alarming sensation earlier.

Fortunately, this sensation was extremely short-lived. Lu Sheng snapped out of his reverie just as Liu Shanzi finished his instructions and handed the floor over to He Xiangzi and another appointed disciple. He turned to one side, coughed twice, then walked in Lu Sheng’s direction.

“Little Sheng, is something the matter? I haven’t had time to chat with you the past few days. How’s your cultivation going?” Liu Shanzi asked, all smiles.

“Everything’s going well.” Lu Sheng nodded. “Teacher, I’ve come this time to ask… the Prime Devil Sect used to possess Ten Laws and Nine Wills, a total of nineteen Prime Devil Secret Arts, is that right?”

Liu Shanzi nodded. “Indeed. That was when the sect was at its prime. Ten great Devil Bodies, nine types of Devil Wills. Together, they comprised Prime Devil Sect’s most powerful system. Why’re you asking this all of a sudden? Now, all that we’re left with is our Phantom Listening branch.”

“I just read about the relevant records in the library and got interested in the ten great Devil Bodies.” Lu Sheng smiled.

“As long as you cultivate and master our Phantom Listening Skill, you can attain the Phantom Listening Devil Body too. Don’t daydream about what’s beyond our reach. Just put your back into cultivation,” Liu Shanzi advised.

“This disciple understands, of course. I was just purely curious. Teacher, among these ten great Devil Bodies, our Phantom Listening Devil Body is ranked last even when it’s fully mastered. I wonder how powerful those top ranked Devil Bodies were?” Lu Sheng pretended to ask casually.

“Our Prime Devil Sect developed a total of ten Devil Bodies cultivation that focused on different aspects of the physical body. Among them, our Phantom Listening Skill is ideally suited for adapting to combat. It has the strongest survivability.

The other Devil Bodies each have their strengths. For example, Sun Law Devil Body specializes in defense. Once fully mastered, life force becomes incredibly mighty. As long as one still has Devil Qi, one can grow at a terrifying speed above the ordinary mortal.”

“How about the Enmity Fire Devil Body?” Lu Sheng asked ‘casually’.

“Oh, Enmity Fire Devil Body… it’s a very violent Devil Body. This branch specializes in burning. In other words, toxic flames. They split toxic flames into many different stages and focus mainly on that. Very powerful in ranged attacks. But when the enemy gets close, they lose their advantage. Hence, in a particular war, they suffered heavy casualties and never recovered,” Liu Shanzi recounted.

“Is that so?” Lu Sheng understood. “Since we’ve started on this topic, why don’t you tell me about the characteristics of the other Devil Bodies, Teacher?”

Liu Shanzi thought that since he had already mentioned one, he might as well tell Lu Sheng about the pros and cons of all ten Devil Bodies, treating it as if he was telling a story.

It turned out that the ten great Devil Bodies of Prime Devil Sect each had their strengths and weaknesses.

Take Phantom Listening Devil Body, for instance. It was strong in sustained combat and adapting to various environments. But its overall combat prowess was ranked very low. Enmity Fire Devil Body was specialized in ranged attacks. Once the enemy got near, it was in deep trouble. And Evil Capital Devil Body had astonishing speed and had frightening aura concealing abilities. It was the ideal assassin-style Devil Body.

After this introduction, Lu Sheng had a rough understanding of all of them.

But not every Devil Body was unique.

Among them, four focused on tempering physical strength. They merely had different ways of going about it.

“Oh yes, you’ve been to the Holy Weapon pool once. You should know how to go there. If I’m not around, you’ve got to help guard it. Don’t let any unauthorized personnel barge into it. You can also spend more time to observe the Holy Weapon and sense its power. But definitely avoid making contact with it. The power of Law is not something that life can touch. It’s got extremely potent radiation and excessive contact with it will do your body harm,” Liu Shanzi suddenly mentioned.

“Holy Weapon pool? I got it.” Lu Sheng nodded. Liu Shanzi was giving him greater access to the key areas in Prime Devil Sect.

He obtained more information Liu Shanzi, then spent some time advising his junior apprentice brothers and sisters before returning to the small lake in the depths of the River of Poisoned Fog.

His excuse was that he was cultivating in a Devil’s Pool near the deep sections. After all, no one besides Liu Shanzi could approach the Devil’s Pool he had chosen.

Liu Shanzi was too occupied by sect affairs to come and see him. Hence, his secret of cultivating in the lake was easily kept.

Sitting cross-legged in the cave, an evil chant continually rang out around Lu Sheng. It was a powerful mind disruption field—a natural zone of defense produced by the Snake of Jealousy.

Lu Sheng had once tested it out on the bizarre snakes in the lake and discovered that this field could affect them as well. It could make them fear him as if he was their natural predator.

This allowed him to dispense of the worry of having to protect himself while cultivating.

“The cultivation mantra of Enmity Fire Devil Body is here. And the required materials are ready too.” Lu Sheng looked at the several black boxes placed in front of him and took a deep breath.

‘Upgrades purely by the path of martial arts have reached their limit. My physical body can no longer be strengthened any further by accumulating these low-level martial arts. Now, only secret arts have any effect on me. Let’s hope this Enmity Fire Devil Body can strengthen my physical body.’

Shutting his eyes, Lu Sheng breathed out a breath of murky air.

“Hoo…”

A ball of black flames slowly ignited on each of his palms.

This was Prime Devil Sect’s famous toxic flames. It was produced by igniting the Devil Qi converted from the River of Poisoned Fog—a powerful flame carrying lethal poison and highly corrosive properties.

The toxic flames floated above his hands, slowly merging with each other in midair in front of him to form a ball of fist-sized thick black flame.

‘Elemental Fire, Art Master, Cross-Shaped Flame, Rank Application… only after these four stages can one begin to truly cultivate the Enmity Fire Devil Body.’ Lu Sheng picked up the first black box which corresponded to the first stage.

‘In that case, let’s begin with the Elemental Fire stage.’

He opened the black box and took out a purplish black square metal from within.

He tossed it into the levitating black flames.

“Boom!”

The flames instantly enlarged.

“Deep Blue!” Lu Sheng swiftly opened his Modifier.

The pale-blue screen of the Modifier immediately emerged before his eyes. Quickly, he found a new row at the bottom corner of the screen. The following words had appeared:

‘Elemental Fire Mantra: Initiated. Special Effect(s): Fire Manipulation Grade One.’

‘This is the one. Because I’ve achieved full mastery of the Phantom Listening Devi Body and possess endless Devil Qi, the first stage, which consists of enduring the roasting of flames intensified by fuel, should be a piece of cake for me given the strength of my physical body. So I breezed through this Initiation stage.’ Realization dawned on Lu Sheng.

‘In that case, let’s begin upgrading.’ He reviewed the contents of the Enmity Fire Devil Body mantra which he had seen on the wall of the cave once more. After ensuring that there were no omissions or mistakes, he slowly shut his eyes.

With his mind, he clicked on the upgrade button.

“Swish!”

The Modified shook and blurred. Then instantly snapped into focus again.

‘Upgrade Elemental Fire Mantra to Level One.’ Lu Sheng pressed on the button behind Elemental Fire Mantra.

Instantly, a peculiar sensation gushed out from his heart.

Lu Sheng sensed that his manipulation of toxic flames had just improved by a notch. If he could previously control it casually, he now could command it like moving his arm. Whether it was the intensity of the toxic flames, the output of force, and its shape and form, he could manipulate them at will.

A new status display had appeared on the Modifier as well.

‘Elemental Fire Mantra: Level One. Special Effect(s): Fire Manipulation Grade Two, Fire Resistance Grade One.’

‘No discomfort in my body. I’ve only expended Aquarius Qi. Not bad… only ten percent of Aquarius Qi.’ Lu Sheng sensed the changes in his own body, then continued on with the upgrade to the next level. he clicked on the button behind Elemental Fire Mantra with his mind once again.

“Swish.”

The screen blurred then returned to clarity immediately.

“Elemental Fire Mantra: Level Two. Special Effect(s): Fire Manipulation Grade Three, Fire Resistance Grade Two, Body Strengthening Grade One.”

‘Another body strengthening effect…’ Lu Sheng paused. Feeling that there was no burden to his body, he continued upgrading.

The expended Aquarius Qi was constantly replenished by the unending supply of Prime Devil Qi.

Prime Devil Qi, in turn, was replenished by absorbing great amounts of Devil Qi from outside the body, which was being converted within him in a frenzy.

With nine Yin Devils converting them at the same time, Lu Sheng’s speed far exceeded all Phantom Listening Devil Bodies of the same level in the Prime Devil Sect, be it in terms of conversion speed or other aspects.

Hence, his rate of replenishment of Devil Qi was on par with his expenditure. His Devil Qi was immediately replenished each time it was used.

‘At this rate, I’ll break through the initial phase of the Enmity Fire Devil Body soon…’ Lu Sheng thought.

Time trickled by.

In the consecutive few days after that, Lu Sheng would travel back and forth between the cave and his living quarters every day. Elemental Fire Mantra was quickly fully mastered after Lu Sheng reached its highest Level Eight. All his expenditure took merely a day of absorbing and converting Devil Qi to replenish. Apart from that, there was no other cost.

What surprised Lu Sheng was that the foundation that the Enmity Fire Devil Body relied on was still Prime Devil Qi, which unintentionally saved him a great number of steps. Moreover, his Modifier had frightening modification abilities, allowing him to take a mere few days to master Elemental Fire Mantra, which took others several years to do so. That contributed to his astonishing cultivation speed.

Next was the Art Master stage.

Art Master focused on the precise manipulation of toxic flames.

The difficulty involved was extremely high and involved a total of four sub-levels. Lu Sheng spent three days in total before fully mastering it with the help of the Modifier.

Next was Cross-Shaped Flame.

This was even harder. Mainly, it involved injecting a trace of toxic flame into one’s own body and storing it within. Through the body’s adaption towards it, this would allow that trace of toxic flame to become the core spark that enabled one to control toxic flames.

Because body tissues around the part of the body that stored the spark would naturally die and shrivel, a cross-shaped mark would appear on the body. That was why it was named Cross-Shaped Flame.

This was the stage in which one truly integrated toxic flames into one’s own body—it was truly the most difficult part of cultivating the Enmity Fire Devil Body.

Because this process was agonizingly painful.

The cross-shaped mark that Lu Sheng chose was on his chest. In actual fact, it did not matter where he chose to have it. Although his fire resistance was not as high as that of the Enmity Fire Devil Body which specialized in fire resistance, it was already far stronger than the founding ancestors who had gone through the Cross-Shaped Flame stage.

Hence this stage was merely a passing phase for him. He broke through it easily.

Soon, he arrived at the final stage before the cultivation of Enmity Fire Devil Body.

Rank Application Mantra.