A Thousand Years of Dao Attainment

The Yellow Court Dao Scripture.

Reciting it silently at all times could increase one's Dao Attainment.

Only now did Zhou Yi understand roughly what Dao Attainment was.

The magical power he had gained through half a year of cultivation amounted to one-third of two years of Dao Attainment. Excluding the portion gained from pills, it was approximately half a year's increase in Dao Attainment.

"In myths and legends, immortals casually have a thousand years under their belts, and old demons ten thousand. With a mere two and a half years of Dao Attainment, going outside is still far too dangerous."

After assessing his Dao Attainment, Zhou Yi obediently continued slaying demons and monsters.

Once the Demon and Monster Compendium had recorded over three hundred kinds of the Demon Race, more and more repeat demons and monsters appeared in the Heaven-Class Prison.

The rewards for demons and monsters in the Heaven-Class Prison were mostly pills and spells, which did less to improve his strength than Dao Attainment. The magical artifacts occasionally rewarded were not particularly powerful either.

Every repeat demon or monster he killed awarded one to three years of Dao Attainment. In just a few months, Zhou Yi's Dao Attainment exceeded a hundred years.

Only one repeat monster had appeared in the Earth-Class Prison: a snake spirit that sucked the yang energy from mortals. Killing it rewarded him with twelve years of Dao Attainment.

His total Dao Attainment instantly broke past a hundred years.

Magical power surged within Zhou Yi, flowing through his meridians like rivers.

Looking at the demons and monsters in the Heaven-Class Prison again, he had a feeling that he could subdue them even without their seals.

Tales of the Executioner gradually accumulated over a hundred stories, all carefully selected to warn the world in one way or another.

For instance, when humans, demons, and ghosts lived together, calamity was certain to follow.

Or how to defend oneself against a minor demon encountered in the wilderness, and even frighten it away.

Some naturally weak members of the Demon Race, such as the Fox Clan and Rat Clan, were weaker than ordinary humans when they first assumed human form. They could only rely on illusions to bewilder people's minds and harm them.

Tales of the Executioner recorded several simple methods for breaking illusions, such as Daoist invocations, striking a sword while singing, and a scholar's self-examination. None required magical power.

Once a minor demon's illusion was broken, one could simply swing a fist at it and even come away with a fine fox pelt.

The executioners had nearly exhausted their stories. Many new ones were much the same as the old, so they were no longer entered into the book.

Five years passed in the blink of an eye.

Tales of the Executioner had two hundred and six chapters. With no new stories for almost a month, its original manuscript could be considered thoroughly complete.

Zhou Yi ought to have been grateful to the Demon-Slaying Bureau. Otherwise, gathering so many tales of ghosts and monsters would probably have required more than a decade of travel.

Several rounds of Demon-Slaying Commandants had come and gone. After reaching a hundred years of Dao Attainment, Zhou Yi could discern the Demon-Slaying Commandants' strength. They appeared to be in the Body Refining stage.

The lower third grade practiced Body Refining. Comparing their strength to his own, Zhou Yi placed himself in the middle third grade.

During that time, he killed a monkey spirit in the Earth-Class Prison that had claimed a mountain as its kingdom. The Demon and Monster Compendium rewarded him with the Presence Concealment Technique, which could not only suppress fluctuations in his magical power but also diminish his presence.

Even if someone weaker than Zhou Yi spoke his name right in front of him, their mental impression of him would remain hazy.

"A hundred years of Dao Attainment is equivalent to the lower third grade. A thousand years... I wonder whether that can rival the upper third grade."

The magical power in Zhou Yi's dantian had already become a vast ocean. At rest, its waters were still; when set in motion, mountains and rivers trembled.

"The upper third grade practices Spirit Refining. Unfortunately, there's no one to guide me. What exactly does Spirit Refining mean?"

The Demon-Slaying Bureau.

Punishment Office Prison.

A pitch-black, snake-shaped phantom emerged from underground.

The phantom held a special spirit talisman in its mouth. The prison's formations sealing the earth and barring the skies had no effect whatsoever.

After carefully checking its direction, the phantom wriggled like an earthworm and silently arrived outside Cell Thirteen of the Class B prison.

"This should be the place that person mentioned."

A gleam of magical light flashed across the phantom as it used a bloodline-sensing art. Sure enough, it discovered its descendant imprisoned inside.

The Punishment Office Prison was layered with restrictions. Without a key, the only way inside was to break the cell door through brute force. But once such a commotion drew the Demon-Slaying Bureau's experts, even an upper third grade demon or monster would find death impossible to escape.

The phantom flickered and concealed itself in a corner.

An unknown length of time passed before footsteps sounded. The executioner responsible for the killing in Class B Cell Thirteen had arrived.

It was Zhou Yi.

With a minor trick, Zhou Yi could get the captains to assign him the strongest demon or monster each day.

The other executioners wished they could stay in the Heaven-Class Prison forever and had no objections.

Zhou Yi took out his token and opened the cell door, entirely unaware that a phantom had slipped inside.

Imprisoned in the cell was a snake demon with pitch-black scales and several large fleshy growths on its forehead and belly.

"No wonder it was locked in the Earth-Class Prison. It's about to shed its snake body and transform into a flood dragon."

Zhou Yi clicked his tongue in wonder and deftly took out his instruments of execution, preparing to cut off the fleshy growth on the snake demon's head first.

The growth already contained flood dragon blood, making it a rare ingredient for pill refinement.

A phantom appeared behind Zhou Yi's head. Black light flashed as it prepared to burrow into his brain.

Buzz!

The instant it touched the back of his head, a layer of five-colored radiance enveloped Zhou Yi's entire body.

The phantom let out a piercing scream, as though it had slammed into walls of bronze and iron.

"What the hell is that?"

Zhou Yi flashed several yards away and clearly saw the phantom floating in midair.

It was over three feet long, with a slender, snakelike body. Yet Zhou Yi's keen eyesight clearly picked out dragon horns atop the snake shadow's head and four claws along its body.

"A flood dragon's soul?"

Zhou Yi circulated his magical power. The five-colored radiance intensified severalfold, forming a suit of five-colored armor over his body to guard against another sneak attack from the dragon soul.

"Who are you?"

The dragon soul's voice was filled with wariness. He had paid the alliance leader a hefty sum for the location of his son's cell.

The plan had been to possess the executioner and use magic to take his son out. Someone else would erase all traces afterward.

The executioner before him possessed magical power as deep as an abyss and as vast as the sea. Even with his true body present, he might not win, much less with his dragon soul outside his body!

Can someone tell this king what on earth is going on?

"Who do you think I am?"

Discovering that his opponent was merely a soul, Zhou Yi relaxed considerably.

At Zhou Yi's level of cultivation, bolstered by a thousand years of Dao Attainment, he understood many principles on his own without needing anyone to teach him.

The body was the boat, and the soul the oar. They depended on one another; neither could be absent.

Even if the dragon soul's owner possessed heaven-reaching cultivation, his Primordial Spirit was now outside his body, leaving him with less than a tenth of his strength at his peak. In theory, unless this was a ten-thousand-year-old demon, Zhou Yi had nothing to fear.

"How would I know who you..."

The dragon soul's voice abruptly stopped. A glint flashed through his eyes. Could this be a trap laid for this king?

Once that thought arose, he connected the human who had suddenly appeared at the Dragon Palace with the immortal-path True Person before him. Everything made sense.

That person must have had a way to deceive the Heart-Questioning Technique, or had been certain he would die in the Demon-Slaying Bureau. That was why he had dared swear such a deadly oath.

Roar-

"If this king returns alive, I'll cook that man alive!"

The dragon soul gave a long howl and spat several beams of azure divine light at Zhou Yi to freeze him, while circulating all his magical power and charging at the cell door.

Now convinced that he had fallen into a human trap, the dragon soul no longer cared about alerting the Demon-Slaying Bureau. Escaping alive would already be a blessing from heaven.

"Why is this fellow running away?"

Zhou Yi looked bewildered. Purple Spirit Flame rose in his hand and transformed into a fire dragon that devoured the azure divine light.

This Spirit Flame was called the Earthly Pole True Flame. Only when flames from ten thousand fathoms beneath the earth erupted onto the surface and gestated for a thousand years in a place rich with fire spiritual energy could a single flame be born.

The previous year, Zhou Yi had killed a thousand-year-old fire ghost in Cell One of the Class B prison, and the Demon and Monster Compendium had rewarded him with the Earthly Pole True Flame.

Zhou Yi practiced many kinds of spells, but their grades were low.

A dragon soul whose Primordial Spirit could leave its body had to be a demon king of the upper three realms, so he opened with a killing move.

Purple-red flames swept outward. The ice instantly evaporated, and the cell's temperature abruptly soared.

The moment the dragon soul saw the true flame, his expression changed drastically. Spirit Flame was especially effective against souls, further confirming that this was a deception and a trap.

Roar-

With a dragon's howl, the dragon soul spat out a mass of his Primordial Spirit essence, transforming it into a pitch-black dragon claw several yards long.

The dragon claw seized the cell door and tore a large hole straight through it. The dragon soul turned into a streak of light and fled through the opening.

The instant the cell door was damaged, alarms rang out in the Demon-Slaying Bureau, and three streaks of light entered the Punishment Office Prison.

The dragon soul was activating his spirit talisman. Seeing the approaching streaks of flight light, he spat out another mouthful of essence.

The talisman's five-colored spiritual radiance blazed brightly, and it burrowed underground, vanishing from sight.