Rage

Several months later.

After traveling across much of Anping Prefecture, Fang Yu had collected two flames of the Fire of Ten Thousand Households.

In a cave abode he had casually carved out in the wilderness, Fang Yu consumed the two flames of the Fire of Ten Thousand Households and supplemented them with a large quantity of Spirit Stones. As his Dao Attainment rose, his cultivation steadily improved.

By the time he had finished consuming both flames, his cultivation had reached the Qi Ingestion Third Layer.

"Not bad. With so many Spirit Stones, as long as my Dao Attainment improves, my cultivation can improve along with it!"

Fang Yu murmured to himself, sensing the strands of fortune and karma attached to his Law Power. With a turn of his thoughts, the Yuanchen Pearl spun around, dissolving the various ties of fortune and karma and depositing the purified fortune into the fortune area he had set aside within his sea of consciousness.

Breaking through to the Qi Ingestion Third Layer means I've entered the Middle Qi Ingestion Stage. I can also try practicing some of the Law Techniques in my Cultivation Method.

Fang Yu immediately left the wilderness cave abode and rode a cloud platform slowly through the air, observing the mortal villages and towns below as he prepared to find a suitable subject on whom to test a Law Technique.

"Ah, ah, ah..."

Suddenly, a series of lewd sounds entered Fang Yu's Divine Thought. Following the sounds, he arrived above a household.

Within his Divine Thought, he saw people engaged in a sordid affair in a room.

Outside the door stood two servants dressed like household guards.

A man squatted in the courtyard, clutching his head, his face full of anguish and conflict. Hearing the cries from the room, he clamped his hands tightly over his ears.

Before long, the sounds in the room died down, and a young man pushed open the door and walked out, looking thoroughly pleased.

"Young master, what prowess!"

"That woman's cries were enough to steal a man's soul!"

The two servants immediately went up to greet him. One of them even glanced into the room, his eyes gleaming with lust.

"Hahaha!" The young man laughed loudly and took a few steps, then looked at the man squatting on the ground. "Bao Er, you really are a fortunate man!"

At those words, the man named Bao Er trembled, but he did not even dare raise his head. He watched the young man's heels as he walked away.

Fang Yu saw this from the sky and immediately said, "Now there's a good subject for an experiment!"

Heart Burning!

With a movement of his Divine Thought, a spark ignited in Bao Er's heart. In an instant, it spread through his entire body, becoming an invisible blaze of rage.

Bao Er abruptly raised his head and stared at the young man's back, flames blazing in his eyes. He looked around, snatched up a firewood cleaver nearby, and charged at the young man.

"This is for sleeping with my wife!"

With a furious roar, he brought the cleaver down hard on the unsuspecting young man's neck.

"Ah, ah... Bao Er, you... you actually killed the young master..."

The two servants stared at the young man lying in a pool of blood, then looked at Bao Er, their faces full of terror and disbelief.

But in the next instant, the cleaver came swinging at them.

"I'll chop you to death... chop you to death..."

Bao Er swung the cleaver wildly, chopping master and servants alike to death. Then, gnashing his teeth, he charged out of the courtyard and toward the main courtyard.

"Ah, ah... murder!"

"Master... Master was killed by Bao Er!"

"Someone, quick... Madam, run... ah..."

"..."

The vast residence descended into complete chaos. Cleaver in hand, Bao Er hacked at everyone he saw. Like a god of slaughter, he left corpses strewn across the ground.

After an unknown length of time, the residence fell silent.

Bao Er stood blankly in the corpse-strewn courtyard, the rage in his eyes gradually subsiding.

Clatter!

The firewood cleaver, its blade now covered in notches, fell from his hand. He stared dazedly at the bodies covering the ground.

"I... I... I killed people!"

His whole body began to tremble, shaking like a sieve, his eyes filled with disbelief.

Watching Bao Er's actions from the sky, Fang Yu nodded in satisfaction.

"Not bad. The power of my Heart Burning Technique is quite good. As long as there's a trace of anger or unwillingness in a person's heart, I can ignite it and let it spread like a wildfire across the plains, making them do things they would never dare do ordinarily."

It was not limited to rage. It could also be the fire of desire. As long as there was desire in a person's heart, it could be ignited and magnified, making them...

Fang Yu summed up his observations and was about to find a few more fated people to experiment on when a faint ripple appeared in the "fortune area" he had partitioned off in his sea of consciousness.

Fang Yu's Divine Thought flashed, and he discovered that one point of fortune had dimmed. At the same time, it was faintly linked to a corpse below.

"What's this?"

Fang Yu looked at the corpse, which appeared to belong to a stablehand. Within it, an invisible spark was burning fiercely, using the man's three souls and seven spirits as fuel.

I didn't expect there to be a Great Peace Village follower in this residence!

Fang Yu thought to himself as he watched the spark burn the man's three souls and seven spirits to nothing, forming a brilliantly glowing point of fire that then became a "true spirit."

Even a mortal follower can form a true spirit!

Fang Yu was astonished. After a mortal died, the three souls would dissipate between heaven and earth, while the seven spirits would gradually dissipate as the corpse decayed.

Only immortal cultivators with Dao Attainment had a chance of retaining a fragment of true spirit after their souls and spirits scattered.

And possessing a true spirit meant they could reincarnate with some of the abilities, and even some of the memories, from their previous life.

This Great Peace Village follower had been no more than an ordinary believer, who usually did little more than join in reciting the Great Peace Incantation. In theory, there was no way he could have left behind a true spirit.

"Could it be because a portion of this man's fortune was purified by the Yuanchen Pearl?"

Fang Yu's Divine Thought then fell upon the many "fortune starpoints" in the fortune area. All this fortune consisted of portions taken from the mortals whose Fire of Ten Thousand Households he had collected.

By now, many of those points of fortune had dimmed, just like that of the man who had just been hacked to death below.

"Could all these dead followers produce true spirits? If that's really the case, wouldn't I strike it rich?"

Fang Yu murmured to himself. In the next instant, he connected with the dimmed fortune starpoints, and one mysterious link after another appeared.

The newly formed fragment of true spirit below flew toward him and entered his sea of consciousness, where it fused with the dimmed fortune and rekindled it.

Boom!

At the same time, scene after scene flashed before Fang Yu's eyes like a revolving lantern.

In that instant, Fang Yu viewed the follower's entire life, from birth to death.

This mortal's life was truly a life of suffering!

Fang Yu sighed. With a thought, he assimilated the experience the stablehand had gained from a lifetime of raising horses, making it his own, as though he really had spent a lifetime raising them himself.

Just then, Fang Yu abruptly turned his head and saw points of true spirit approaching him from the distant horizon. Like a flock of birds returning to their nests, they streamed into his sea of consciousness.

The true spirits formed after death brought with them the memories and abilities of their lives, which continued to surface in his sea of consciousness.

It was like watching a movie. Fang Yu watched the lives of one mortal after another while absorbing the various experiences and abilities they had cultivated and accumulated throughout their lives.