Way of the Devil

After the incident, all of Wu Quansheng’s bodyguards ran away. Wu Quansheng stood behind Lu Sheng quietly.

If it weren’t for Lu Sheng, his right leg would have already been broken by that bulky guy.

“Brother Lu, thank you…” Thinking back to Lu Sheng’s strength, he understood immediately that Lu Sheng was looking for a master with pre-learned abilities. There weren’t a lot of people like this, but not too few, either, most of them being slightly older. Lu Sheng was over twenty, so he should be like that.

“Okay okay, go wait in line patiently.” Lu Sheng didn’t want to talk to this brat. It was a good thing to want to make friends, but accepting everyone without thinking was a bad move.

This would serve as a lesson to him. If he could learn from it, that would be the best. If not, the next time something like this happened, no one would help him.

Wu Quansheng didn’t say anything after that.

Soon, another person from the Spring Sun Sect walked over. He was a young man about the same age as Lu Sheng, with a sword sheathed across his waist.

He walked toward Lu Sheng.

“You were the one who attacked just now? Your strength isn’t bad. Inborn strength?”

Lu Sheng nodded.

“Okay, then you don’t have to wait in line anymore. Follow me.” The young man smiled.

Lu Sheng knew he attracted the Spring Sun Sect’s attention just now, and followed the young man to the registration tables at the front.

The person registering was a middle-aged woman who had a few creases on her forehead. She was also very nice, and smiled at Lu Sheng before asking softly, “What’s your name?”

“Lu Sheng.”

“Lu as in road? Sheng as in victory?”

“Yes.”

“Place of Birth?”

“Sleeping Moon.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-three.”

Lu Sheng answered every question quickly. Of course, he already came up with all the information. After registering, the young man led him to stand with a few other people who made it past the first stage.

This round was mostly just checking personal information and a quick evaluation.

Lu Sheng saw Wu Quansheng very soon as the line had moved up. The testing process was just basic information gathering and then a simple test of potential.

The so-called potential testing was the registration woman reaching out with a finger and tapping the hand of the person registering—that was all.

Lu Sheng could clearly sense a really faint energy like Internal Energy slipping into the person being tested.

Wu Quansheng waited for his result anxiously.

But the result was the same: failure.

“Next.” The person from the Spring Sun Sect didn’t even look at him before calling out.

Wu Quansheng walked away dejected. He looked at Lu Sheng and shook his head sadly, then left.

Lu Sheng didn’t show any emotion toward his sadness. The world was like this—life wasn’t fair. Every day, a lot of people were rejected from the start.

After some testing, more and more people passed. Soon, the number reached twenty.

Seeing that there were enough people, a woman from the Spring Sun Sect stood up, and then led these twenty people away from Three Fruits Lake and toward the nearby woods.

Lu Sheng followed the others as he memorized the way. Soon, they came to a temple in the woods. They walked in one by one to be tested for memory by a really old monk clad in white.

The old monk taught a set of moves that seemed like acrobatics. He only taught the ten moves once, and students would be categorized according to how much they memorized.

To others, this set of moves was weird and hard to understand, but Lu Sheng easily memorized every single move.

However, his goal was not to boast about his talents, but to be trained systematically by the Spring Sun Sect, from reading, all sorts of abilities, customs, and do-nots to the genuine teaching of pure martial arts.

Lu Sheng passed the second round easily and remained in the top four.

The third round was real-life fighting. Using his “inborn strength”, Lu Sheng knocked down two senior apprentice brothers with one palm, and ended his testing early.

Because Lu Sheng wanted to learning about everything here, he reported as unable to read. So, he was sent away from the temple and to a bigger temple deeper in the woods.

Once he entered, he was sent to Mist Hall.

It was a special place to teach disciples like him both reading and writing.

A month passed very quickly.

Lu Sheng got ahold of the basics of the language that the Great Yin used and read all of the geography and history books in the library. Now, he knew enough about the Great Yin and finished his first goal.

Next, it was time for him to truly learn the martial arts of the Spring Sun Sect.

***

“Knock, knock, knock.”

Someone knocked on the door to the wooden house gently.

“Brother Lu, it’s time for morning lessons.” A careful voice sounded outside.

Lu Sheng was sitting on his bed with black Qi flowing all over him. Hearing the voice, all the black Qi jumped, then shot toward his nostrils, disappearing almost instantly.

“Zhong Yuan? You go on ahead, I’ll catch up to you later,” Lu Sheng replied calmly.

Zhong Yuan and three other people were his neighbors in this area. All five of them had special talents.

Lu Sheng had inborn strength, Zhong Yuan had inborn speed, and both Zhang Kairong and Chen Fengnan had inborn thick skin.

The last person, Wang Yunlong, had connected veins. Compared to Lu Sheng and the others, the Spring Sun Sect liked Wang Yunlong a lot more. After just a month, they were still working on the basics, but Wang Yunlong was already working out his body, bathing in medicinal herbs, and learning outer martial arts. He was away a lot. It was even rumored that the elders wanted to take him on as a disciple.

Zhong Yuan waited for a while for Lu Sheng to come out. She was very casual and generous, and didn’t think twice about being a girl who would knock on a guy’s door. The two of them then met up with the other two.

The four of them walked toward the direction of morning lessons.

Zhang Kairong didn’t have shame and loved to joke around, especially with Zhong Yuan. Even Zhong Yuan’s smacks didn’t stop him.

Chen Fengnan would also add in a few sentences here and there. The three of them were chatting away, while Lu Sheng walked behind them silently, hurrying on his own.

His personality was just like that. After being together for a month, everyone understood that already. Zhong Yuan was the only one who would turn around and talk to Lu Sheng here and there, not wanting to exclude him.

However, Lu Sheng was trying to organize all the information he got during this month.

Through subtle questions and reading many unnecessary books, Lu Sheng finally figured out that the highest level of strength in the Great Yin were the Weapon Commanders of Deadly Weapons.

Weapon Commanders were frightening beings who had complete control over the Deadly Weapons and ruled over the Noble Families and the Three Large Sects.

Lu Sheng noticed that it said complete control, and not reliance.

He felt the subtle difference between this and the Divine Weapon Masters in the Great Song. In the ancient books, Weapon Commanders seemed to be equal to Deadly Weapons, and were different from the master-servant relationships in the Great Song.

Below the Weapon Commanders were the Crazy Divine Weapons. These were individual Divine Weapons and Deadly Weapons.

And below those were the Divine Weapon Masters.

Lu Sheng tried to estimate his level. Currently, he could block the Devil Lord’s attack for a short amount of time, so he should be at the very top among Divine Weapon Masters.

There were way more levels in the Great Yin than he’d expected. At first, he thought the highest level here would be that of a Devil Lord’s, but then he realized there were Crazy Divine Weapons and Weapon Commanders. And from the records, both of these were stronger than Divine Weapon Masters.

Crazy Divine Weapons were probably the same level as Devil Lords, and as for Weapon Commanders… he couldn’t even imagine.

“No wonder the Devil Realm didn’t choose the Great Yin for their entry point—this is where the true power of humans congregates…” Lu Sheng understood. Compared to the Great Yin, the Great Song was literally a rural farm area.

After obtaining all this information, the more Lu Sheng understood about Weapon Commanders, the more interested he was in the martial arts system of the Great Yin.

He had successfully entered the Spring Sun Sect, and it would still be at least a good six months before the rest of his sect and family could arrive, so he had plenty of time to explore the new systems here.

The four of them soon came to a platform made of white stone on one side of the temple.

When they got here, there were already a lot of other people present.

The four of them found a spacious corner. Zhong Yuan and the others were pretty famous among the new disciples as they had special talents. The Spring Sun Sect treated them differently when compared to ordinary students.

The other disciples still had to do odds and ends, but all they needed to do was learn new information and peacefully cultivate until today.

The sun just rose; it was early morning. Light shone through the clouds and onto the disciples, bringing a hint of warmth.

Soon, everyone was here. Over a hundred people crowded the space, chatting and talking together.

“It’s about time, let’s start.”

With a whoosh, a white figure shot up from inside the temple. After a few turns, his sleeves billowed out like the wings of a bird, and he used his momentum to land lightly in front of everyone on the edge of the cliff.

He was a middle-aged man, his face gaunt and yellow. Although he was skinny, his eyes were bright and focused.

“Silence.” His voice was loud and booming, exploding above everyone’s heads.

The Spring Sun Sect had strict rules, so all the disciples quickly quieted down. This was the first time in their lives learning the cultivation methods that they’d only heard in legends before, so, naturally, they were all very excited.

The middle-aged man swept his gaze over the crowd and spoke lightly, “My name is Cheng Kongzi, and I’m in charge of teaching you your morning lesson today. Today’s lesson is the first part of Single Morning Sun Qi. If you find your Qi within three days, you can become an inner diciple. If you find your Qi within a month, you can be an outer disciples. If you still want to stay longer than a month, you can either be a servant or go home by yourself.

“This is the specific method and chant for Single Morning Sun Qi.” Cheng Kongzi went straight to the point, starting to teach the moves, tips, and chant for the martial art.

Everyone listened closely, memorizing his moves and warnings.

Lu Sheng was standing to the right, frowning at Cheng Kongzi.

The moves and chant of Single Morning Sun Qi were very easy to him, but they brought up new questions.

‘Origin Qi of the Earth and Sky? Violet Qi of the Rising Sun? What the heck? I’ve cultivated Inner Qi for so long, why haven’t I felt this Origin Qi and Violet Qi?’

There were components of Inner Qi in Single Morning Sun Qi, but more of imagining Origin Qi flowing into one’s body from the outside and being absorbed.

But no matter how closely Lu Sheng paid attention, he couldn’t sense the supposed Violet Qi and Origin Qi that Cheng Kongzi was talking about.

‘Not purifying Qi and converting food to Inner Qi, but playing with these empty moves of collecting Origin Qi from the earth and sky? I don’t believe you can make energy out of nothing.’ Lu Sheng stared at Cheng Kongzi, his five senses fixed on the entire area around him.

Time passed second by second, and everyone else had already started cultivating. Only Lu Sheng and a few other disciples who didn’t understand the martial art were still standing.

“Brother Lu?” Zhong Yuan pushed Lu Sheng gently.

“I’m okay, don’t worry about me. You just go on ahead.” Lu Sheng shook his head.

Zhong Yuan knew Lu Sheng’s attitude, so she stopped bothering him and closed her eyes and started cultivating according to the moves.

After some more time, slowly, Lu Sheng understood a little bit.

Sensing the tiny changes of energy in the air around Cheng Kongzi, although Lu Sheng didn’t understand at first, after combining all the guesses his previous Earth made about space and all the models he had seen, he suddenly thought of something…

‘Could it be… that they are…!?’ Suddenly, Lu Sheng thought of something, and his eyes widened.