Way of the Devil

A blanket of fallen leaves dropped down from above and covered the corpse of the lynx. The emerald green formed a stark contrast with the red blood of the feline.

Lu Sheng retracted his rabbit claws. He walked over with a calm expression.

“Meat is poison. Consuming the flesh of others is, in itself, an extremely cruel method of sustenance. Give it some thought: aren’t there many substances among plants that can substitute meat? Like mushrooms, fruits, and beans.”

Shire slowly recovered from his shock. However, he still looked confused.

When Lu Sheng saw this, he roughly knew the level of Shire’s knowledge. Hence, he said no more.

“Let’s go. Bring me to the rabbit tribe,” he said drily.

After initial surprise, Shire hastily replied in a loud voice, “Yes… Yes!”

He led Lu Sheng and Incisor deep into the forest. After walking for more than 20 minutes, the leaves around them slowly changed from emerald green to dark red.

Shortly after, Shire stopped before a spacious cave.

“Gugu!” he shouted.

After a short while, a response came. “Gugu?”

Shire quickly made some more replies. Then, he turned around and spoke to Lu Sheng reverently. “Esteemed sage, this is the main nest of the white rabbit tribe.”

His voice barely faded when a huge throng of white rabbits came hopping swiftly out of the cave. There were even a few gray rabbits and Harlequin rabbits among them.

The group of rabbits looked at Lu Sheng who was standing on two feet with curious eyes. The rabbits’ red eyes reflected the sunlight in the black cave. The scene resembled various gemstones glinting in the night.

An old rabbit with wrinkled skin and slightly dark eyes stood at the very front. He looked at Lu Sheng with fright. Then, he glanced at Shire as if he was waiting for an explanation.

“This is Sage Lu!” Shire started to introduce Lu Sheng to this old rabbit.

“The sage has killed Gray Rock in the forest of the wild breed. He even killed a lynx and gave me divine teaching,” Shire spoke loudly with all apparent seriousness.

“A lynx?”

“Gray Rock? That venomous snake?”

The group of rabbits were immediately excited. Their bewildered gazes kept falling onto Lu Sheng.

A female rabbit stepped forward, and helplessly said, “Shire, have you eaten too much grass that you’re out of your mind now? A rabbit killed Gray Rock and a lynx? Even if you want to find an excuse, you should come up with a better one.”

“Misha, I didn’t make this up! I saw, with my own eyes, the sage beat a lynx to death right in front of me!” Shire’s emotions were slightly agitated.

“Your own eyes?” the old rabbit in front spoke up.

“Yes! It’s true! It’s definitely true! The lynx’s corpse is still where it is, we didn’t move it!” Shire hastily explained.

The old rabbit nodded. He believed that Shire would not lie. However, there was a higher possibility that Shire was tricked.

“Let’s have a look, shall we? We can just take a look from afar,” said the old rabbit drily.

Lu Sheng paid no attention to their debate. He was indifferent whether they believed him or not. If things did not go smoothly here, he would go search for the other tribes.

Although he was a rabbit, that did not mean he was limited to subduing rabbits alone.

Even though the rabbits here had to have had their own reliance since they were able to live here for so long, that was insignificant for Lu Sheng.

As he looked at this group of rabbits arguing about whether they should accept him, an outsider, he gradually grew impatient.

Shire kept explaining, but nobody wanted to believe him. Some of the rabbits were even starting to doubt Shire. They suspect that Shire was in cahoots with Lu Sheng in a bid to trick the intelligent breed rabbits.

This made Shire’s eyes grew redder.

“That’s enough, Shire,” Lu Sheng finally spoke up to stop him.

“If they’re unwilling to accept the teaching, let them be. They aren’t the only rabbits in the forest. Fate will not favor the rabbit tribe alone.”

He turned around and walked away. Rabbits were cowards by nature. An individual like Shire was the odd one here. It was actually understandable for the other rabbits to act this way.

Shire was arguing with the elder when he suddenly heard Lu Sheng’s words from behind. He was immediately shocked. He turned around and saw that Lu Sheng was already some ways away. Lu Sheng was about to vanish among the foliage.

He hesitated hard on the spot. However, he could not suppress a certain anticipation and longing in his heart. He gritted his teeth and went after Lu Sheng.

“Shire! You come back here, Shire!” The shouts of a female rabbit came from behind.

Shire turned a deaf ear. Although he had only met Lu Sheng for a short period of time, he believed that Lu Sheng was the hope of the rabbit tribe. He was the rabbit tribe’s sage, the light of hope!

He had always been bold. This time was no exception.

Shire followed Lu Sheng and Incisor. They kept going for some distance before stopping.

“Why are you following me?” Lu Sheng asked him out of curiosity.

Shire gave it some thought. In the end, he gave voice to his puzzlement. “Sage… Aren’t you here to give the rabbit tribe enlightenment?”

“Wrong.” Lu Sheng shook his head. “I’m here to bring enlightenment to the entire forest.”

Shire was immediately hit with a sudden understanding…

After that, he followed Lu Sheng. They found an abandoned tree hollow and settled down.

Incisor was in charge of setting up the nest, while Shire was in charge of security. Lu Sheng, on the other hand, continued to eat grass whenever he felt hungry or thirsty.

He had accomplished the first stage of his Black Dragon Heart-crushing Mantra. His appetite increased greatly. The amount of food he needed was much more than before. The grass fields around him was cleared away by him in a few days.

Soon after, the tree leaves in the surroundings also fell prey to him. The trees grew balder. The vegetation could no longer cater to Lu Sheng’s appetite.

The third day after they left the rabbit tribe.

Lu Sheng stood before the tree hollow’s window with his hands behind his back. He made this window to ventilate the tree hollow. Also, he outlined the places for the two rabbits to pee and poo. He did not want to be disturbed by the pungent scent of rabbit pee.

‘This body is almost accustomed to the changes. It’s time to carry out the next step.’ Currently, his body had completely gotten used to the first stage of the Black Dragon Heart-crushing Mantra. He could rank up to the next level already.

At this moment, Shire was standing guard outside. Incisor was sleeping soundly on a nearby grass bed.

“Deep Blue.”

Lu Sheng summoned his modifier again. The light blue interface surfaced before him.

“Black Dragon Heart-crushing Mantra, first stage. (Special traits. Enhancement of fundamental strength, level one. Enhancement of fundamental explosive strength, level one. Enhancement of fundamental vigor, level one.)”

He quickly pushed the modify button. Lu Sheng focused.

“Rank up Black Dragon Heart-crushing Mantra to the second level.”

The frame blurred again. Lu Sheng quickly felt his own body swelling up again.

The warm sensation spread across his body again. His fur grew longer and appeared shinier now.

He’d initially been the size of a palm. Now, he was barely the size of two palms.

This time, the ranking up was quick.

The warm feeling had only persisted for a short while before it ended. The frame sharpened swiftly as well.

Lu Sheng glanced at the frame again.

“Black Dragon Heart-crushing Mantra, second level. (Special traits. Enhancement of fundamental strength, level two. Enhancement of explosive strength, level two. Enhancement of fundamental vigor, level two.)”

“Pcchht!”

Lu Sheng swung his arm casually to test his agility.

His gray rabbit claw merely stayed in midair for an instant, yet it had left a clear mark. A claw mark a few centimeters deep had been left on the tree bark before him.

‘There’s no obstruction. I’m much stronger than before now.’ Lu Sheng was quite satisfied. It seemed as if his body was much more accustomed to the changes this time. Perhaps it was because it was the first improvement and he had to modify the cultivation method to suit a rabbit’s constitution; that was why it took him so long.

This time, it was much faster.

The modifier had to adapt the Black Dragon Heart-crushing Mantra, which was meant for humans, to suit a rabbit during his first rank-up. Lu Sheng guessed that this was also why it had taken this long.

However, it was different this time.

‘Since this body can take it, let’s rank up again.’

He decided to do as he liked.

He quickly focused his attention and started to improve his skill formula again. After a short while, the Black Dragon Heart-crushing Mantra was raised to the third stage.

“Black Dragon Heart-crushing Mantra, third stage. (Special traits. Enhancement of fundamental strength, level three. Enhancement of fundamental explosive strength, level three. Enhancement of fundamental vigor, level three.)”

At the third stage, Lu Sheng vaguely felt that he seemed to have a deeper understanding about the rhythm and nature of vigor in this world.

After all, the modifier used his spirit to derive and improve his martial path. Hence, he could clearly understand the process of every improvement made.

This was a cultivation process with his knowledge and experience to begin with.

When he reached the third stage of the Black Dragon Heart-crushing Mantra, Lu Sheng clearly felt the suppression of the rules here on his main body weaken.

‘It looks like I’m able to use my Yang Essence after all this time. There’s also the transplanting art… I can only get used to this skill which is purely applied in surgery by dissecting the bodies of living beings. Also, the spirit-prompting threads are a branch of vigor too. I can somewhat use it now. That’s good news… Just as well, the vegetation is growing sparse here.’

Vigor was the lowest class of energy in every world. However, it was precisely because it was of the lowest class that it had the greatest adaptability.

Many rules of the vigor’s path could be used in many worlds. On the other hand, peak skill formulas that were highly specified had the lowest adaptability. A lot of time would be needed to modify them.

The third stage of this skill formula had resulted in Lu Sheng’s body size being three times his original size.

Currently, he was the size of a little cat.

However, his strength was twice as great as that of the lynx he defeated before this.

With such strength, coupled with Lu Sheng’s own combat experience, he was practically invincible in this forest.

Hence, Lu Sheng quickly began his plan.

…

…

“Aurr!”

Deafening wolf howls rose and fell throughout the forest. The sound spread far and wide.

Lu Sheng slowly exited his focused state. He was currently sitting cross-legged on the branch of a huge tree, waiting silently for something to happen below.

Shire and Incisor did not follow him here. They were too weak. They would be useless even if they were here. This time, Lu Sheng intended to settle this on his own.

The eyes of rabbits should not be able to see anything in the forest at night. Rabbits had terrible eyesight. They were short-sighted from birth. Also, they could not see things in three dimensions, so everything appeared flat to them.

This was because there was no overlap in their field of vision. The result was that they could not estimate distance.

Naturally, all this was meaningless to Lu Sheng. His immense vigor rolled within himself. This enhanced his body’s adaptability to his surroundings to the maximum. His short-sightedness and two-dimensional view were corrected and improved thanks to his surging vigor.