"Since you're being so open with me, senior sister, I might as well speak from the heart."
Zhao Changfeng drew a deep breath, his swordlike brows drawing together, his face full of sincerity. "I, too, fell for you at first sight, senior sister! If you'll have me, I would walk the path of cultivation by your side from this day onward, never leaving or abandoning you for the rest of my life!"
His words made Ruan Meizhen freeze for an instant.
A strange gleam quietly rose in her soul-snaring eyes. Her alluring lips curved slightly as she asked with a smile, "Oh? Do you really mean that?"
Zhao Changfeng answered with ironclad certainty, "Every word!"
The next instant, his nerves abruptly went taut!
Ruan Meizhen's eyes still held a soft, seductive smile, yet Zhao Changfeng glimpsed something hidden within them... hatred!
An exceedingly dangerous, bloodthirsty aura rapidly spread from Ruan Meizhen's exquisite body, making the desert's already cold night even more frigid.
Realizing his cleverness had backfired, Zhao Changfeng did not understand why, but he dared not make the slightest move.
"Hah!"
Ruan Meizhen let out a long breath.
Her fragrant breath washed over Zhao Changfeng's face, yet he felt none of its sensual allure, only a bone-deep chill.
-He keenly sensed that Ruan Meizhen was desperately restraining the urge to kill him on the spot!
"Never leave or abandon me for the rest of your life? Heh, let's leave that for another day."
Ruan Meizhen turned, leaving him a view of her enticing curves. Her tone suddenly cooled. "First, use the Dryland Sand Lizard and the Essence-Devouring Demon Art to reach the Yuanqi Stage. Once you're strong enough to keep yourself alive, you won't drag me down."
With that, fearing she could no longer restrain her murderous impulse, she vanished from Zhao Changfeng's sight in the blink of an eye.
Half an hour later.
The Dryland Sand Lizard at Zhao Changfeng's feet had visibly shriveled.
The spirit beast's blood became strands of power brimming with scorching heat, flowing into the world of the spirit sea in Zhao Changfeng's lower dantian.
The Essence-Devouring Demon Art was written in simple, accessible terms. Zhao Changfeng grasped it at once and had no difficulty putting it into practice.
Low-level demonic arts, including the Corpse Demon Art and the Ten Thousand Poisons Art, were relatively easy to pick up, since they were intended for those just setting foot on the path.
The true difficulty of the Demonic Cultivation Art always lay in the various forms of backlash that emerged as one delved deeper.
"Hah!"
Zhao Changfeng exhaled. His chiseled jawline trembled as he clenched his teeth, tugging at the stern contours of his face.
After refining only a third of the Dryland Sand Lizard's blood, an uncontrollable craving to kill had arisen within him. The longer he cultivated, the stronger that bloodlust grew.
He had been forced to stop because he was already on the verge of losing control.
Within the small world of the spirit sea in his lower dantian, cultivating the Essence-Devouring Demon Art and drawing in the spirit beast's blood essence had left a distinct, indissoluble stain of deep crimson.
His spirit sea was no longer pure.
The bloody energy from the Dryland Sand Lizard proved even more potent than the gift of the Bronze Cauldron from Beyond the Heavens, as though it would send the power within his spirit sea soaring skyward.
The next realm was the Yuanqi Stage. To reach it, he had to gather the abundant spiritual power in his lower dantian and break through the sturdy gate of his middle dantian.
Now, he distinctly sensed a force yearning to surge upward. Once he refined all the Dryland Sand Lizard's Beast Blood, it truly might build into that upward surge!
No wonder everyone flocks to the Demon Sects like ducks to water. Cultivating demonic arts really is fast, but...
Zhao Changfeng pondered silently.
The bloodlust within him had yet to subside. Having cultivated a Demonic Cultivation Art for the first time, he dared not act rashly and began calmly considering the differences between the Essence-Devouring Demon Art and the Lingxiao Qi-Controlling Art.
The Lingxiao Qi-Controlling Art cultivated by gathering spiritual energy. Spiritual energy existed everywhere in this world; it merely varied in density.
Demonic sects such as the Incomplete Demon Sect established their mountain gates deep within famed mountains and mighty rivers rich in spiritual energy. Their disciples could, in fact, cultivate demonic arts using spiritual energy alone.
Their progress through the cultivation realms, however, would inevitably be much slower.
This world was far too cruel. Everyone wrestled with Heaven for their lives, striving to climb swiftly through the realms, all gripped by the urgency of time waiting for no one.
Within the Ordered Domain, war raged endlessly between the great Demon Sects, and killing fellow disciples was not forbidden.
Outside, Demon Spirits, sinister entities, and Demonkind from the Unordered Zone watched like hungry tigers, seeking every opportunity to erode the ordered world and turn it into a bloody, lawless battlefield of chaos.
Faced with such a perilous and terrifying situation, every cultivator who stepped onto this path neglected sleep and food to cultivate, doing everything possible to increase their fighting strength and cultivation realm.
Refining blood, devouring corpse energy, gathering souls, crushing bones...
As long as a demonic art could swiftly raise one's realm, someone would stake their life on cultivating it, no matter how great the risk of backlash.
Orthodox cultivation methods such as those of the Lingxiao Sect, which chiefly absorbed spiritual energy, had long since been discarded by the new era. Anyone with even a little ambition would not touch them.
Now that I've left that Demon Mountain, I have to be wary of everyone I meet, including my senior brothers and this senior sister Ruan.
What can truly improve my chances of survival is a higher realm and greater fighting strength, so...
Zhao Changfeng looked again at the Dryland Sand Lizard's corpse. He suppressed his bloodlust a little, then silently began circulating the Essence-Devouring Demon Art once more.
The Demon Mountain would not rise into the air again for another seven days, and Ruan Meizhen had taken him some distance away from it.
Unless he achieved a Realm Breakthrough soon and reached the same Yuanqi Stage as the Named Disciples scattered everywhere, he feared he would not return to the Demon Mountain alive.
A hundred meters away.
Atop a raised dune, Ruan Meizhen's beautiful face was suffused with chilling murderous intent as she looked down at Zhao Changfeng, who had resumed cultivating with the Dryland Sand Lizard's blood.
At this distance and elevation, her cultivation allowed her to see Zhao Changfeng, while he could not see her.
Never leave or abandon me?
She glanced at her empty sleeve. Her face instantly twisted into something ghostlike, her teeth grinding audibly, every breath seeming to take all her strength.
"Miss Ruan."
A gaunt old man in gray with a goatee slowly climbed the dune, stooped and hunched, then stopped well away from her.
"The things you wanted."
From afar, he tossed over six bottles and jars filled with vividly colored venom. He watched Ruan Meizhen flick her empty sleeve and take them all.
Thud!
A cloth pouch containing eighty spirit stones flew from Ruan Meizhen's other hand and landed firmly on the sand before him.
"Thank you, Miss Ruan."
The gray-robed old man picked up the pouch, not daring to count its contents before her. He forced a fawning smile onto his aged face. "My two sons have gone missing. Have you happened to see them nearby? They look..."
The old man described their appearances.
"No need to go on. My two junior brothers killed them."
Ruan Meizhen answered indifferently. She was already considering when to use the bottled venom to risk another attempt at breaking through to the Primordial Spirit Realm.
The backlash is terribly dangerous. Even having a backup to transfer the poison to is no guarantee. I still need to proceed cautiously.
As she pondered, she looked down at Zhao Changfeng again, gradually concealing the fierce murderous intent in her eyes.
The gray-robed old man felt pain pierce his heart like an awl. His shoulders shook violently, and the spirit stones in the pouch suddenly seemed to burn his hands.
He lowered his head, doing his utmost to conceal his grief, and asked softly, "Miss Ruan, may I know the names of those two junior brothers of yours?"
Taken aback, Ruan Meizhen looked at him again and frowned. "I advise you not to do anything foolish."
The gray-robed old man dared neither raise his head nor meet her eyes, but stubbornly said in a trembling voice, "If it isn't too much trouble, please, Miss Ruan, for the sake of our many dealings, tell me their names."
Ruan Meizhen's brows knitted more tightly. She stared intently at the gray-robed old man in silence for a moment before saying, "Chen Haoming, Zhang Mu."
The old man bent deeply, offering her a solemn bow, then turned and left without another word.
Ruan Meizhen shook her head on her long, pale neck and murmured, "Seeking your own death."
"Hm?"
Annoyance suddenly flashed in her beautiful eyes.
In that brief span, Zhao Changfeng had actually stopped his second bout of cultivation again and was now sprawled on his back, gazing at the cold, clear night sky.
Ruan Meizhen immediately grew irritable. Feeling that Zhao Changfeng had disrupted her plans, she snapped, "If you don't hurry up and break through to the Yuanqi Stage, what am I supposed to do?"
"Hah! Hah! Hah!"
Zhao Changfeng's chest heaved relentlessly. He panted hard, desperately restraining the impulse to resume refining the Beast Blood at once.
Just moments earlier, as he drew in the spirit beast's blood essence with the Essence-Devouring Demon Art, a stabbing pain had suddenly erupted in his lower abdomen, his dantian nearly tearing apart.
He could have endured the pain and kept cultivating, but a jumble of memories abruptly flashed through his mind, making him rein in at the brink of the cliff.
For competitive athletes in any field, the greatest inner demon is becoming a slave to training. No one can improve endlessly. Only by restraining the desire to train can you keep going.
Stress hormones, cortisol, fatigue and damage to nerves, joints, and tendons-all need time to recover.
Once you develop OTS-overtraining syndrome-mild cases bring colds, fevers, and a loss of enthusiasm for training. Severe cases cause physical and mental problems from which you may never recover, ending your athletic career.
A wealth of scientific knowledge related to training suddenly surfaced deep within Zhao Changfeng's memories, leaving him dazed.
This was a complete, cutting-edge training system from another world, developed through painstaking research by coaches from various countries and elite sports institutes. It was also knowledge he had mastered long ago, deeply imprinted in his mind.
Now, those memories quietly surfaced.
Zhao Changfeng stared blankly at the sky, silently piecing together memories that had always belonged to him. Only after a long while did he murmur, "I don't understand this world's so-called cultivation, but I seem to understand how to train scientifically."
"Aren't cultivation and training based on the same principles?"
"Making progress in demonic arts also requires scientifically managing fatigue, lowering cortisol and stress hormones. When it's time to reduce the load and rest, do that. When it's time to stop completely, stop completely."
"I was so eager for quick results just now that I nearly dropped dead. That was close."
"I have to stay steady. I absolutely can't rush things. The more I rush, the sooner I'll die."
The next day.
Suppressing her inner agitation, Ruan Meizhen once again approached Zhao Changfeng with graceful elegance.
She glanced at the Dryland Sand Lizard, only a third of whose Beast Blood had been refined, and feigned surprise as she asked, "Have you encountered something difficult to understand in the Demonic Cultivation Art?"
Any other fellow disciple in the Nine Heavens of Essence Refinement who obtained a First-Rank Spirit Beast such as the Dryland Sand Lizard would have refined it first without a care for anything else.
Afraid of backlash? Afraid of cultivation deviation?
Then why cultivate demonic arts at all?
They might as well go home and farm!
His face full of apology, Zhao Changfeng explained sincerely, "I'm sorry, senior sister. I've spent too long cultivating orthodox methods. Since I only encountered the Essence-Devouring Demon Art last night, I haven't fully adjusted yet."