Way of the Devil

Translator: Deep_Blue  Editor: Kurisu

After acclimatizing for a while, Lu Sheng sensed that he had already committed to memory all of Light Void Skill’s movement steps, and even mastered its mantra. He continued to memorize the entire next two levels before sitting down cross-legged.

‘Deep Blue!’

He summoned the Modifier without further ado.

A pale blue frame surfaced. Unsurprisingly, a new row had been added at the end for Light Void Skill.

‘Light Void Skill: Uninitiated.’

‘Time to begin… Upgrade Light Void Skill to Level Three.’ Lu Sheng pressed unhesitatingly on the button in the Modifier to begin upgrading and focused on the frame for Light Void Skill.

As he concentrated, the square frame suddenly jerked; from Uninitiated, it instantly jumped to Initiated. Only a single unit of Yin Qi had been expended.

‘Again.’ Lu Sheng remained focused.

“Swish, swish.” From being Initiated, Light Void Skill jumped to Level One, then Level Two, and finally, to Level Three.

Lu Sheng began to feel a numbing, itchy sensation around his thighs, groin, and waist areas. There was also a mild ache, which disappeared as soon as it surfaced.

The present strength of his fleshly body was just too impressive. To train this Strength Proficiency qinggong in the blink of an eye only caused his body slight stress, and didn’t harm a single hair on his head.

‘Oh, that’s all it took to master this.’ Lu Sheng stood up. The memory of the various uses and experience in movement steps of Light Void Skill flooded into his mind.

He tried charging forward a few steps.

“Pu pu pu!”

In the blink of an eye, Lu Sheng was at the other end of the sanctuary in just three consecutive steps. Just as he was about to hit the wall, he made an abrupt left turn.

Indeed, his entire body swung to the left and shot out another few meters. Then, he retreated swiftly, zigzagging across the sanctuary and swerving in different directions in mere fractions of a second.

‘I’m truly much nimbler now than before. In the past, in order to change directions, I had to decelerate first before turning. Now, I can turn as and when I want to without decreasing my speed, and do the same even for advancing and retreating. This Light Void Skill is pretty impressive.’

Lu Sheng was rather satisfied.

‘Next up is the true heavyweight.’ He took up the second qinggong manual—the Cloud Bow Skill.

The Cloud Bow Skill was a qinggong especially suited for speeding in a straight line, as well as amplifying explosive power. Likewise, it did not involve inner Qi, and was merely an outer force skill.

Lu Sheng only had to practice it once and memorize its mantra and movement skills before it appeared on the Modifier’s selection.

Subsequently, he took up the third book, ‘Pegasus Steps’, ‘One Breath Lightweight Skill’, ‘Three-in-One Arrow Firing Skill’, ‘Chaos Wind Art’… etc. As time passed, he committed to memory each and every one of these qinggong, then added them into the Modifier frame.

After he had memorized all of the qinggong techniques, he refocused his attention to Light Void Skill. Concentrating on the ‘Extrapolate’ button behind the qinggong technique, he exhaled lightly and calmed his gaze.

‘Extrapolate Light Void Skill to Level Four.’ His voice had just commanded as he pressed onto the Extrapolate button before his body immediately felt a mild tremor.

The numbing sensation resurfaced in his legs. An extremely light and nimble sensation spread outwards from his legs.

He didn’t move a single inch. The fourth level of Light Void Skill played in his mind—it was a movement technique that encompassed the Cloud Bow Art, with even greater explosive speed than the Level Three. The skill within the frame also changed.

‘Light Void Skill: Level Four. Special Effect(s): Level One Explosive Power; Level Three Nimbleness.’

‘Again! Extrapolate Light Void Skill to Level Five!’ Lu Sheng looked at the Modifier before him and continued to press onto the button.

The Modifier frame trembled slightly and blurred before once again coming back into focus.

‘Light Void Skill: Level Five. Special Effect(s): Level Two Explosive Power; Level Three Nimbleness.’

Lu Sheng’s gaze was steadfast as he continued to press for the next level.

‘Extrapolate Light Void Skill to Level Six.’

The frame blurred and then grew clear again.

‘Light Void Skill: Level Six. Special Effect(s): Level Three Explosive Power; Level Three Nimbleness; Level One Tremor.’

Seeing that a new special effect had surfaced, Lu Sheng focused his senses on it. To his surprise, he found that this tremor effect was basically the result of absorbing the Anti-Tremor technique that he cultivated from the hard body skill, Extreme Yang Dao.

‘AGAIN! Continue extrapolating Light Void Skill to Level Seven.’

‘Light Void Skill: Level Seven. Special Effect(s): Level Four Explosive Power; Level Four Nimbleness; Level Two Tremor.’

He continued to upgrade one level after another.

The amount of Yin Qi that was expended also began to climb. When he reached Level Nine, each upgrade eventually cost him two full units of Yin Qi.

***

‘Upgrade Light Void Skill to Level Ten!’ Lu Sheng looked at the frame calmly, with a hint of anticipation in his eyes.

Both his legs were already swollen. Muscles as hard as steel gradually lumped together. Massive volumes of Yin Yang Jade Crane Aquarius Qi gushed to his legs, accelerating the healing of his muscles and bones.

The Modifier screen blurred again. This time, it took a whole three breaths’ time before it came into clarity again. By the time it did so, Light Void Skill looked completely different.

‘Light Void Skill: Level Ten. Special Effect(s): Level One Force Step, Level Seven Nimbleness.’

‘Force Step… to think that it popped out!’ Lu Sheng was shaken. This special effect was a powerful special skill in a mobile app wuxia game he used to play in his previous life. It could rip apart the earth and form ripple-like shock waves. It was an area-of-effect attack that inflicted immense heavy damage.

The shock wave produced by Force Step was somewhat akin to the how Officiator Bai Jiang had caused the earth to rise in a wave.

‘So… it seems like beyond a certain level, the might of pure outer force skills is starting to resemble the secret arts of demons, eh?’ Lu Sheng’s eyes narrowed.

Suddenly, he pulled up his trousers, revealing black patches on the skin of his legs. They were muscles between his legs—black muscles which looked like armor plates. Between them were red blood vessels, spread across his thighs and calves like a web. Once could even hear the intense gushing of potent blood in them.

Presently, his legs no longer looked human. The mutation caused by the evolution of his muscles, ligaments and blood vessels had attained a state unrecognizable by human standards.

‘I’ve expended over ten units of Yin Qi. I can continue.’ Lu Sheng looked at Light Void Skill’s box. Presently, Light Void Skill had incorporated elements of hard body skills, outer force skills, other qinggong skills, and even some parts of inner force skills into itself. Subtly, it felt as if inner Qi was being injected to him from the outside; it was no longer an ordinary qinggong technique.

“Extrapolate Light Void Skill to Level Eleven,” Lu Sheng said calmly.

“Szzzz….”

The box blurred before coming into clarity again.

‘Light Void Skill: Level Eleven. Special Effect(s): Level Two Force Step, Level Eight Nimbleness.’ This time, two units of Yin Qi were expended.

Placidly, Lu Sheng continued upgrading it.

Level Twelve, Level Thirteen, Level Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty!

At Level Twenty, another radical mutation had occurred in Light Void Skill. It was no longer apt to call it Light Void Skill, which was a name that failed to include all its effects.

‘Light Void Skill: Level Twenty. Special Effect(s): Level One Unknown.’ All its special effects had vanished, leaving behind this line of red words sitting silently in the Modifier.

Finally, Lu Sheng halted the extrapolation.

He glanced at his legs. Not many changes had occurred to his muscles and bones compared to before. The only difference was that something was growing rapidly on his knees and the middle of his feet.

Lu Sheng sensed the rapidly depleting Yin Yang Jade Crane Aquarius Qi within him. Massive volumes of it were being channeled to ameliorate the side-effects of the body’s drastic transformation.

As time ticked by, the changes in his legs became even more obvious and Lu Sheng finally saw what was happened to his legs.

Now, even without wearing trousers, his legs were as if covered in a layer of black metal armor, hard and bright. The biggest transformation, however, occurred to his originally normal feet.

Razor sharp nails extended out of his toes; they now could move as nimbly as his hands. His feet became slender and long, and a crystalline structure grew out of the middle of his feet, as if a piece of crystal had been embossed into armor.

A circle of sharp-bladed spikes grew out of his calves like armor plates. Looking savage and pitch-black, they covered his entire legs. Gazing at them from top-down, one could see countless holes in the gaps between these armor plates.

“Swish.”

Lu Sheng rose to his feet. The lower half of his body looked as if it was cloaked in a set of dense, savage black armor.

“This special effect…” He glanced again at that unknown effect in the row of Light Void Skill. His instincts told him that he must not activate this skill right here.

“For it to be even more powerful that the area-of-effect Force Step, the might of this special effect must be the ultimate combination of qinggong and damage. I’ve got to find an empty space to try it out.”

His supply of Yin Qi had almost been completely expended; he was left with only a few units. Lu Sheng was unbothered, though. He had experienced the effect of Light Void Skill—its lightness, nimbleness, as well as its incredulous explosive power.

“About there…” He tugged at his trousers and covered his legs with his robes. Yin Extreme Mode activated swiftly and the black armor plates which had grown out of his legs quickly adhered to his skin, from which a layer of skin-colored membrane grew and covered both his legs.

Very quickly, Yin Extreme Mode’s powerful cloaking effect was amply demonstrated.

Lu Sheng’s armor-covered legs swiftly recovered their human form. The only undisguisable features were the sharp toenails on his feet as well as the nimbleness of his feet.

He stood up, walked to the door of the sanctuary and lifted the bar. In a fit of rumbles, the stone door slowly shifted away.

“I’m making a trip out,” Lu Sheng instructed.

“Yes, sir! Your subordinate will prepare the carriage!” a guard swiftly replied.

“No need. I just want to go on a stroll by myself. No need to follow me,” Lu Sheng said plainly.

***

Northern Lands, Sprit Swallow Peak.

In the flurry of snow, the entire mountain wilderness was cloaked in silver. It was a scenery of bright white.

Lu Sheng walked slowly in the frozen snow. The footprints he had left behind were immediately covered up by the heavy snow.

“AHH!”

A white shadow streaked across the sky and made a loud call.

Lu Sheng lifted his head and gazed at the white bird flying past with narrow eyes. He was about to remove his disguise and test the power of Light Void Skill.

Without warning, a looming shadow closed in on him at top speed, covering him within in the blink of an eye.

“That’s…” Lu Sheng’s pupils immediately shrank.

What leapt over him was a gigantic white wolf.

The size of a small mountain, the wolf’s body blended perfectly into the snow, each indistinguishable from the other. Still, however, Lu Sheng’s powerful eyesight made out his form.

The white wolf’s speed was extremely fast. In just the blink of an eye, it leapt over and across Lu Sheng into the distance like a swathe of white cloud.

It had merely been passing by. Several dozen meters long, it looked like a prehistoric beast as it pounced into the distance, carrying immense pressure.

In the blink of an eye, the wolf had completely vanished into the snow.

Lu Sheng watched the wolf leave and fell into a moment of silent thought.

Suddenly, he lifted his leg.

“KA BOOM!!!”

Rings of cracks ripped across the ground, sending heaps of snow exploding and rising into the air.

With Lu Sheng at its epicenter, spider web-like cracks appeared swiftly in a radius of a dozen meters or so. Immense anti-tremor force propelled him into the air, sending him in hot pursuit of the giant white wolf.

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