319 Chapter 320 - Smooth Sailing 2

Seven or eight days passed in the blink of an eye. After the Lin Family incident at Sleeping Moon County, the news of Moon Shadow Sect's Fourth Elder's defeat in the hands of Lu Sheng hadn't spread yet. Only the fact that he had single-handedly defeated the entire Lin Family was well known.

And he finally understood what a Node was.

"Dinggg!"

Holding a knife in one hand, Lu Sheng turned and struck out repeatedly. His knife blade drew circles reminiscent of full moon, continuously shining with a bright light in mid-air.

Compared to before he came to this sect, the power and speed he displayed here showed at least a ten percent increase.

The white full moon appeared and disappeared continuously, one after another, until all of them finally dissipated. Lu Sheng stood up with his body slightly bowed and ended the show.

"Node…. So this is the how classes are determined in the Great Yin," said Lu Sheng, staring at the streaks of golden wire above him. 

Normal people couldn't see these wires. Only some other monster like him that also had eyes that could see energy would be able to clearly observe the problem here.

"Basically, Nodes are the points where all of the Spring Sun Sect's great Essence Qi gets concentrated into a formation.

"They are the places where the Essence Qi overlaps each other and has the highest concentration." Lu Sheng sighed. "That means that every disciple of the Spring Sun Sect is providing Essence Qi to the few disciples at the Nodes.

"With the advantage of using the Node, the difference between us and the lower class is as wide as the sky."

Even when he wasn't practicing his knife forms, he could still feel the wild, continuous rush of Essence Qi perfusing into him.

This was the formation that Feikong Zi was talking about.

What drew even more of Lu Sheng's attention was the fact that the Essence Qi delivered by the golden wires was strangely pure. Compared to the Essence Qi he absorbed normally, he didn't even need to refine it before absorbing it.

"Boom!"

Suddenly, a ball of white light exploded above the courtyard next door like a sort of firework.

With his thoughts interrupted, Lu Sheng hurriedly left, and looked at the courtyard next door.

The door of the courtyard to the left slowly opened, while many instructors and even one manager started to arrive.

Everyone was whispering quietly in front of the door, waiting for the occupant of the courtyard to come out.

Soon, the occupant slowly walked out—he was a young man with a brooding face. Looking at his face, it was obvious that it was Wang Yunlong, whom Lu Sheng used to live with.

Lu Sheng vaguely heard from the people around him that there had been a breakthrough. At this stage, they were all cultivating the Four Squares Origin, which made guessing what Wang Yunlong had broken through very easy.

"Body of Connected Veins? Interesting." Lu Sheng narrowed his eyes. After glancing at him a couple more times, Lu Sheng left for his own courtyard. 

"Deep blue." He summoned the Cheating Device quietly.

His raw talent shouldn't be comparable to Wang Yunlong's Body of Connected Veins, but who else had a Cheating Device?

Lu Sheng scrolled down the list on the Cheating Device, and soon found the window of Four Squares Origin. This technique was separated into three tiers, specifically for the purpose of refining Essence Qi, absorbing it, and improving one's Life Force.

In the Great Yin, Life Force was the way that physique, regenerative ability, stamina, power, etc. were measured.

Life Force and True Qi referred to the body and Inner Qi, respectively.

"Simply in terms of True Qi, my Four Squares Origin is about to break through to a new tier. However, it's only the second tier, with still a way to go to the Connected Veins Wang Yunlong's third tier," Lu Sheng calculated. "Might as well improve it using Aquarius Qi."

He concentrated and pressed on the evolve button lightly.

"Whoosh."

The Cheating Device vibrated and blurred for a second before becoming clear again.

"Four Squares Origin… evolve to the third tier." Lu Sheng concentrated, and pressed the button on the window. 

The Four Squares Origin was the standard foundational technique of the Spring Sun Sect. After this technique was cultivated to full completion, he could start to come in contact with the core layer of the Great Yin system.

The window blurred again. Lu Sheng closed his eyes, sensing that the rate at which the golden wires above his head delivered Essence Qi rapidly increased. Vast amounts of Essence Qi continuously surged into his body, forming an invisible whirlpool at his lower abdomen.

The whirlpool spun faster and more rapidly, then finally formed a ball of gray current at the center with a puff.

Lu Sheng immediately felt like his body had been slightly nourished and strengthened. This improvement seemed to have happened at a cellular level.

It was very slow and soft, unlike when Devil Qi and Liquid Qi strengthened the structure of his body. Instead, it was more akin to Devil Essence, making modifications at the fundamental level of his life.

"How…." Lu Sheng was surprised. The strength of his body was already that of a standard Devil Master, which was quite obvious from the blows that he exchanged with the giant skeleton hand back then. What he lacked were mental fortitude and other forms of energy.

He planned to check the system of Great Yin, and then leave.

But, a random Four Squares Origin somehow improved his body, which shocked him to no end.

His body had already been strengthened to a terrifying level. The Ultimate Eight-Headed Devil could be improved even more if he didn't lack pure Devil Essence.

But a body like that was somehow strengthened again by an ordinary technique that wasn't even Bind level.

As weak as the improvement might have been, it was observable.

"This means the Four Squares Origin belongs to a whole different system." Lu Sheng was pleasantly surprised.

He carefully controlled the energy within him.

The liquid and Devil Essence slowly separated, and a new current of True Qi appeared in his body. Devil Essence was concentrated in his chest, while the liquid was inside of his heart.

This way, his whole body had been emptied, then charged full of True Qi.

The body that had been strengthened to its limit was once again filled with True Qi like an empty kettle being filled.

This was another reason why the Extreme Yin Form was so terrifying. After restraining everything to the extreme, even a Devil King or Divine Weapons Master wouldn't be able to discern the extent of Lu Sheng's true power.

Essence Qi continued to surge into Lu Sheng from his head, converted to True Qi in his Devil Master level body, and then went on to nourish his body and cycle through his veins according to the path dictated by the Four Square Origin.

"Puff!"

The Four Square Origin had a total breakthrough, and reached the third tier, then promptly completed a major cycle in his body.

The mass of white steam hovering above Lu Sheng's head combined with the Essence Qi in the air, and surged toward the sky in a pillar of white smoke.

"Boom!!"

The pillar of smoke exploded like fireworks.

"Another… another breakthrough!?"

Everyone outside fell silent, which was followed by a wave of shouting breaking out. A massive amount of people moved in the direction of Lu Sheng's courtyard.

Lu Sheng stood in front of his courtyard and looked toward his neighbor. His eyes met with Wang Yunlong's. With a confused expression, Wang Yunlong walked out of his courtyard gate.

The two stared at each other, neither intending to start a conversation.

Wang Yunlong moved his gaze away, his eyes showing a sliver of confusion and deep thought.

Lu Sheng raised his lip in a smile, and instead turned his gaze toward the instructors and managers flying his way.

The news of the Spring Sun Sect's two new prodigies spread throughout the entire Sleeping Moon County overnight.

Both completed the cultivation of the fundamental Four Square Origin in a short month, something that hadn't happened in almost ten years.

The even better news was that there were two at the same time.

Even though accomplishing this could be considered normal with one of them having a Connected Veins Body, but with such an astounding speed, it was still commendable.

After some deliberation, the Elder Palace decided that one direct disciple be assigned to each to act as a personal tutor.

Direct Disciples were the core of the Spring Sun Sect. They would be future palace masters, managers, and even elders.

These people possessed talent on a completely different level. They enjoyed the nourishment of Nodes every day, and their power had already reached an indescribable level.

Lu Sheng's instructor was a fat man named Liu Zhicheng. He was blind on one eye.

The upper management took into consideration that Lu Sheng even managed to injure the fourth elder of the Moon Shadow Sect by surprise attack. This level of strength, even without True Qi, could threaten masters at the Bind level.

This was why the upper management placed Lu Sheng as their top priority, and believed that he possessed an extremely potent bloodline in the strength area. As such, they sent the Bind level Liu Zhicheng to be his tutor.

Lu Sheng limited his bodily strength to Bind level. But, even so, the terrifying power he possessed surprised Liu Zhicheng to no end.

During the tutoring session, he designed tactics against all kind of enemies based on Lu Sheng's strength. 

Then, he taught Lu Sheng the real Spring Sun Mind Fixing Mantra, the main technique of Spring Sun Sect.

As time flew by, Lu Sheng also calmed his heart, and started cultivating rigorously. As he expected, the True Qi refined by the new technique was more concentrated, and the improvements to his body were more obvious.

He could vaguely picture a way to strengthen his body without any more Devil Essence. This realization gave him even more of an incentive to cultivate.

If he only viewed this as a fun game at the start, then he was now truly treating True Qi as a major part of his arsenal of techniques that he was cultivating.

He was experimenting with a new path that combined Inner Qi, True Qi, and Devil Qi into one.

Lu Sheng had a feeling that this True Qi was the key to integrating Inner Qi and Devil Qi.

Three months passed in the blink of an eye.

Lu Sheng had cultivated the Spring Sun Mind Fixing Mantra to the third tier, and succeeded partially. There were only six tiers to this technique, after all.

As he planned to just cultivate in seclusion like this while, waiting for the main caravans of the Prime Devil Sect, Liu Zhicheng brought in a message from the Elder Palace. 

"Lu Sheng, the Great Elder would like to see you." Speaking of the Great Elder, Liu Zhicheng's face showed obvious respect and awe.

Lu Sheng was absorbing Essence Qi and immediately opened his eyes.

"When?"

"Now."

"Now?" Lu Sheng fell silent, and slowly stopped his cultivation. As he studied the True Qi techniques in these past months, he also organized the Devil techniques and Secret Arts, as well as Inner Qi Techniques. His whole being was in a mysterious state right now, with countless inspirations and ideas closing up the gaps between the three bodies of power.

"Understood…." Lu Sheng stood up and straightened his cloth. Feikong Zi was waiting for him outside.

"Long time no see." Feikong Zi's pupils dilated as he saw Lu Sheng, obviously startled.

"Jade-like skin… you… you somehow reached this level!" The voice contained various emotions like jealousy, bitterness, disbelief, and many others.

"Still weak compared to Senior Apprentice Brother," Lu Sheng said calmly.

"I cultivated rigorously for eighteen years, yet you caught up in a month… I'm the weak one here," Feikong Zi said in a bitter voice. "Let's go. Be prepared, we might have to go into the county."

"The capital of Autumn Moon County?" Lu Sheng knew that Sleeping Moon County was a part of the Autumn Moon County, while the county capital was always the most prosperous major city. Them going there must have meant that something important was going to happen.

"Yes, for the selection of upper sects. There are three of you. This place is too small for you all, it seems. Let us see the Great Elder first." Feikong Zi shook his head with a complicated expression. 

Lu Sheng nodded. His eyes brightened. This was his goal all along. The Spring Sun Sect was too restrictive for a prodigy like Lu Sheng, and it limited his growth too much.

This decision from the higher-ups made perfect sense.