"Good. In any case, be careful and don't draw attention to yourself. If anything happens, use your talisman to wake me."
Cang Wu spoke softly. Then he prepared to sink into silence and begin restoring his soul.
He was different from Little Marten. As the Lord of Devourment, Cang Wu excelled above all at wielding Devouring Power. He could absorb energy from the world around him and repair himself.
Seeing this, Lin Dong's expression turned anxious, and he hurriedly spoke up.
"Senior Cang Wu, is there anything I can do for you?"
"That's thoughtful of you. If you can, find me a wisp of Yin Yang Qi."
Cang Wu chuckled softly at his words. It seemed Lin Dong truly was good-natured; all the effort he'd spent giving the boy such a reward hadn't been wasted.
"Yin Yang Qi? Senior, are you planning to condense a physical body?"
Little Marten was startled again. Even though he now knew the identity of this mighty expert before him, Cang Wu's methods still astonished him every time.
Each time Cang Wu spoke, Little Marten felt as if his understanding of the world were about to collapse.
"Correct. However, I can't help you right now."
Cang Wu nodded. Little Marten felt a little disappointed, but he wasn't surprised. He hadn't expected much in the first place.
For one thing, helping someone else create a physical body was extremely difficult. For another, Cang Wu was currently only a remnant soul. No matter how many methods he knew, his abilities were limited.
"Don't worry, Senior. I'll remember."
Lin Dong nodded firmly. Then, as if he'd just thought of something, he scratched his head and gave an awkward laugh.
"By the way, Senior, there's one more thing. Could I ask you for a favor?"
"Go ahead. What is it?"
Cang Wu replied softly. Lin Dong smiled awkwardly, then explained the predicament the Lin Family was facing. At the end, he added in a quiet voice,
"Senior Cang Wu, Wei Tong may be nothing in your eyes, but he's still a problem for me. I hope you can give me some guidance so I can get through this difficult situation."
"You're saying that with your current strength, you can't handle a mere cultivator at Lesser Perfection of the Yuan Dan Realm?"
As he spoke, Cang Wu shook his head and sighed, looking rather disappointed. Lin Dong froze and asked instinctively,
"I'm only at the middle stage of the Heavenly Yuan Realm, and I'm a One-Seal Symbol Master. How could I possibly deal with Wei Tong?"
"You managed to kill Gu Ying, a Two-Seal Symbol Master, so your foundation in Spiritual Power must be decent. Yet you can't use a Symbol Master's methods to deal with a cultivator at Lesser Perfection of the Yuan Dan Realm? It seems I really will have to give you some guidance. Otherwise, when you go out into the world, you'll end up making me lose face."
Cang Wu gave a soft snort. Seeing that Lin Dong and Little Marten still didn't believe him, he couldn't help but chuckle and ask,
"Don't believe me? Do you know why my teacher accepted me as his disciple back then?"
There was no way Lin Dong could know about this. He shook his head at once. He didn't even know who the Symbol Ancestor was. Little Marten knew a little, but only a little; he didn't understand much beyond that either.
After taking a deep breath, Cang Wu recalled the events of those long-ago days, and a faint smile appeared on his face.
In ancient times, the path of Primal Energy had developed reasonably well, and many experts had emerged. But Cang Wu was merely an unaffiliated cultivator with no background and no one to guide him, so he couldn't learn any powerful martial arts.
At the time, the Symbol Master path passed down from the Symbol Ancestor had only just begun to rise and was still being explored. The Seal Condensation Method was crude and simple, barely good enough to cultivate.
Though this newly emerging path of Symbol Masters was quite mysterious, few people thought much of its immature methods of cultivation. As a result, no one paid attention to it, and the Seal Condensation Method spread widely. That was how Cang Wu had the good fortune to embark on the path of Symbol Masters.
As for why the Symbol Ancestor had taken notice of him, accepted him as a disciple, and passed an Ancestor Symbol down to him, it was because the Symbol Ancestor happened to come across Cang Wu during a fight.
Cang Wu's strength in that battle was about the same as Lin Dong's now, though his cultivation was a little higher.
His Spiritual Power was also at the One-Seal Symbol Master level. But in terms of Primal Energy, Cang Wu was on the verge of harmonizing Yin and Yang and condensing a Yuan Dan. He'd gotten into a dispute with someone over a spirit herb, and his opponent had been at Lesser Perfection of the Yuan Dan Realm.
At the time, Cang Wu had relied on astonishing combat talent and the uncanny nature of a Symbol Master's Spiritual Power to keep that expert at Lesser Perfection of the Yuan Dan Realm suppressed throughout the fight.
As for Primal Energy, it was merely an auxiliary tool to Cang Wu back then. Since he couldn't learn profound martial arts, he'd simply abandoned them and relied entirely on combat techniques when fighting others.
After all, even an expert at Lesser Perfection of the Yuan Dan Realm couldn't afford to take a Symbol Master's attacks head-on. Even an attack from a Heavenly Yuan Realm cultivator would badly injure them if they tried.
They had to guard against the strange attacks of Spiritual Power and the close-range attacks of Primal Energy. They had to defend against everything. Even when they occasionally struck back, their attacks weren't very powerful, and Cang Wu could withstand them with his Spiritual Power and Primal Energy.
That battle had left the Symbol Ancestor so impressed that he accepted Cang Wu as his disciple on the spot and let him choose one of the Eight Great Ancestral Talismans.
Cang Wu's fighting style had taken shape from then on, and even more so after he mastered the Devouring Ancestral Talisman.
Under ordinary circumstances, Cang Wu didn't like using so-called special moves. They were too much trouble. In the time it took to use one, he could strike dozens or even hundreds of times.
"Your cultivation is a little weaker than mine, and your comprehension is a little worse too. But with the power of your Life Spirit Talisman, you only need to use your strengths against your enemy's weaknesses, then follow up with close-range attacks using Primal Energy. You'll be able to suppress your opponent with ease."
After he finished, Cang Wu began offering Lin Dong some pointers, speaking as if it were all effortless.
But after listening, Lin Dong could only laugh awkwardly. He had little confidence in himself.
That was an expert at Lesser Perfection of the Yuan Dan Realm!
Lin Dong wasn't the only one lacking confidence. Little Marten wasn't confident either. Unless he had the true form of a Heavenly Demon Marten, how could fighting across realms possibly be that easy?
But after thinking it over, Little Marten felt at ease. He was a genius of the Heavenly Demon Sable Clan, but even a genius like him could barely reach the threshold to meet the expert before them.
After all, if everyone could do it, there wouldn't be just one Lord of Devourment in the world.
Lin Dong also wanted to say, You're an unparalleled genius, Senior. I'm just a lucky kid who stumbled upon the Ancestral Stone. How could I compare to you?
Just because you could beat him—and keep him suppressed the whole fight—doesn't mean I can do the same.
As if he'd noticed what they were thinking, Cang Wu sighed and spoke softly.
"Forget it. I remember there's a Spirit Grinding Mill inside the Ancestral Stone. It contains some insights I left behind from my early cultivation. You can study them and temper your Spiritual Power. If you still can't handle your opponent after that, just wake me."
With that, Cang Wu waved his hand. Lin Dong and Little Marten felt their vision shift, and the two of them appeared before two enormous white grinding discs.
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