The New Devil Path

Early in the morning, Mama Hu got up with a yawn and saw her son wearing only a pair of shorts, standing by the water tank taking a cold shower.

It's almost October, and the weather is starting to get cooler, especially in the north. Even in the early morning, it's already quite chilly.

In this situation, Mama Hu watched the other person's actions with puzzlement.

What are you doing?

"It's a bit hot," Hu Mang sighed.

Last night, I was cultivating the Profound Yin Devil Fire. Everything was normal until, just as I condensed the fire seed, it was unexpectedly absorbed into the Cauldron-Boiling Devil Meridian. Then, the effect was unexpectedly good, even a bit too good.

The Profound Yin Devil Fire instantly reached its peak!

As a result, the Hu Mang got up early in the morning to take a shower.

It's so hot!

"Mom, it's No. 14 Shougang Street, right?"

Hu Mang suddenly said.

Mama Hu was taken aback at first, then nodded silently.

"I plan to go take a look during the day," Hu Mang said calmly, glancing outside the wall. "Should we take care of those spies outside beforehand?"

Mama Hu laughed.

"Don't underestimate your mother. This little situation is nothing. Back when the Five Great Households were involved, what kind of demons and monsters didn't we encounter? The games these people outside are playing are things your mother has already mastered."

"Okay, I'm leaving then."

Hu Mang went back inside to change his clothes and then went straight out the door.

Mama Hu looked thoughtfully towards the door, then shook her head after a long while before going back inside to make breakfast.

In a high-end residential complex in Pine Peak, in an upscale Golden Core building where units are sold individually by floor, a well-dressed middle-aged woman hung up a phone call, her face somewhat dark.

"We've lost track of that kid from the Hu Household."

"It's okay if it's lost, Mom. It's not a big deal."

At a table not far away, two young men who looked alike were having a meal, and one of them laughed.

"What do you know? Now that kid Huang Jiayou has given up and wants to come back to fight for power, if he joins forces with the Hu and Liu families, our Bai Household won't have enough voting power in the company."

"Isn't there still Eighth Master Hui on our side?" another young man said casually while lazily making a phone call to the woman he was keeping.

"Hui the Eighth is opportunistic; once we're no longer of any use to him, he might just abandon us and cooperate with the Liu Household."

"Once Huang Jiayou exposes the accounting problems, the older employees in the company might not necessarily be on our side."

Fourth Aunt Bai said coldly, "Boss, stop looking for your women. Go to the company and get people. Tomorrow is the Liu Household's engagement banquet. I'll make sure the Hu Household can't attend. Let's see how they collude then."

"And you, second brother, didn't I tell you to do everything you could to get on good terms with those people in the Holy Cult? What are you doing? Can't you let them have some fun with those sluts you're keeping?"

"Mother, those people are so stubborn! I don't even know if they're some kind of evil cult. They refuse to indulge in wine, women, money, or power. What can I do?"

"Then take them to meet people. Don't they want to get to know some people within Heavenly Gate? Don't they want to know the Shen Household? If you don't show your value now, when will you?"

"Yes, Mother."

The twins stood up, ready to move.

"By the way, where's my older brother?"

"I had the eldest brother work alongside Hui the Eighth. Hui the Eighth has no children, so I told him to treat Hui the Eighth's job later."

After the two left, Fourth Aunt Bai dialed another number, and her tone became sweet and coquettish.

No. 14 Shougang Street.

Hu Mang looked up at the abandoned factory not far away.

This is an old factory, and a boiler factory used to refine Spiritual Qi. This kind of old technology is not just old, it's not from the electrical age, but a cultivation technique from the steam age.

"The Spiritual Qi extracted back then was still Turbid Spiritual Qi, right?" Hu Mang muttered to himself, and with a wave of his hand, he scaled the wall and entered.

This is where his mother found him. It wasn't a toilet or a street, but a steam factory. According to his mother, more than 20 years ago, when the factory was still operating, she found him there while wandering around.

At the time, her mother thought he was the descendant of a technician in the factory, but when she found out he wasn't, she ended up adopting a son.

The abandoned factory had no security. Hu Mang rushed into the factory and saw at least five abandoned steam boilers.

In order to cope with the nationwide shortage of spiritual energy, the newly established New Heavenly Gate brought out all sorts of ancient crafts.

Turbid Spiritual Qi is still Spiritual Qi; having it is better than having none.

The processing methods back then were quite simple and crude. They directly compressed the Spiritual Qi extracted from the outside world. The problem was that while the purity of the Spiritual Qi, transforming Spiritual Qi from low-grade to mid-grade, the impurities in the Spiritual Qi also increased, and they became more difficult to remove.

This resulted in a large number of people not Foundation Establishment purely, leading to problems in their later cultivation.

Of course, by ancient standards, this group of people would not have been able to build a foundation at all.

"I remember, back then, to deal with this situation, we created a batch of things that were quite in line with the style of steampunk cultivation. What were they called again? Exoskeletons? Oh right, they were called External Spirit Root."

Using its "Heavenly Eye," the Hu Mang scanned the area and quickly identified its target.

He found the thing in a warehouse where the lock was broken.

There were over a hundred "External Spirit Root" placed in this abandoned warehouse.

They look very much like exoskeletons in some post-apocalyptic art style. They are about the size of a normal person, made of spiritual metal, and have a grayish surface covered with a thick layer of dust. What's special is that these training metals are adorned with many fine needles, like cow hair, to fit different heights and acupoints.

According to Hu Mang's understanding, in order to deal with the problem of Turbid Spiritual Qi, that is, steam Spiritual Qi, some brilliant person came up with an idea, which was external Foundation Establishment.

Simply put, it involves introducing high-pressure steam into the meridians to forcibly expand them, and then taking advantage of this opportunity of Spiritual Qi infusion to forcibly establish Foundation Establishment.

If successful, not only will cultivation level improve, but meridians will also expand by at least 30%. The newly created steam Spiritual Qi will be channeled out through the "External Spirit Root" instead of remaining in the meridians and becoming some cultivation stagnation.

This procedure sounds great, but there's a small problem: it can damage your meridians.

The chances of disability are quite high.

Therefore, after the Foundation Establishment Pill formula was re-derived, this wildly styled cultivation artifact was immediately abandoned.

After reminiscing about the wild cultivation style of those days, Hu Mang looked back at the broken door lock and the footprints on the ground.

"Does anyone else share my love for these retro-style healing machines?"

Hu Mang muttered to himself, placing his foot on the same type of footprint and noticing that this footprint was significantly larger—no, it should be said to be twice as large.

"Wow, such a big foot, that's quite a sight," the Hu Mang muttered to itself.

"And what about these faint wisps of Demonic Qi?"

Having cultivated Devil Cultivation Method to a certain level, Hu Mang naturally sensed the trace of Demonic Qi remaining in the air.

This Demonic Qi was quite strong; the opponent's cultivation level was at least at the Foundation Establishment Late Stage.

"Since they haven't disappeared, it means they haven't been here long. And since they haven't touched anything, it means they either just came to visit and check things out, or they came to scout ahead and prepare for follow-up work."

Hu Mang prefers the second option.

After all, it's possible that overseas demonic cultivators would specifically travel to the Heavenly Gate to visit the antiques, but it's not very likely.

He thought for a moment, then sent a message to his mother, telling her that he wouldn't be coming home for lunch and might not be coming home for dinner either. Then he found a relatively clean spot on the ground, plopped down, and his aura gradually disappeared as his breathing weakened. He was basically self-taught in this way of concealing his aura; the fox demon bloodline was quite useful in many small techniques.

Another day passed.

It's late at night again.

Then, heavy footsteps sounded, seemingly accompanied by the rattling of chains. Hu Mang slowly opened his closed eyes, and with a flick of his hand, the massive black iron spear weighing 3,500 jin was summoned. He then pushed open the door and went inside.

The light was dim, but it didn't affect Hu Mang's vision. He quickly spotted the guy opposite him, which immediately reminded him of the Jingtu monk from Demon-Subduing City, because the guy opposite him looked remarkably like that nearly ten-foot-tall monk in terms of height and size.

"I remember when we were working on 'The Myriad Methods Return to the Source,' we already eliminated a significant portion of the methods that would cause physical mutations. How could you still cultivate to this level? Do the overseas demonic sects still practice those fundamentalist doctrines?"

Hu Mang tilted his head slightly and looked at the huge figure opposite him, who was dressed in a black hooded suit and seemed to be carrying two large boxes.

"Who are you?"

A deep, hoarse voice came from the opposite tunnel.

"That's a good question. How about you answer one of my questions too? What's your relationship with that group of people from 25 years ago? Tell me that, and I'll answer you."

Hu Mang laughed.

The other person glanced at the large gun in Hu Mang's hand, paused for a moment, and then placed the two large boxes on the ground with a dull thud.

Then he ripped off the black coat that was covering his face, revealing his true appearance.

It was a body that could hardly be called "human" anymore.

He was tall, over ten feet in length, with a massive frame like a bear standing upright. But what truly drew attention was the mechanized modification of half of his body.

Starting from the right side of the cervical spine, most of the skull was replaced with silver-gray metal skeletons. The right half of the face was made of cold, hard alloy panels, replacing the original cheekbones and jaw. A crimson mechanical prosthetic eye was embedded in the eye socket, with fine runes constantly flowing and flashing in the pupil.

The right arm below the shoulder blade is completely mechanized, and the torso is even more shocking—from the collarbone to the waistline, large areas of skin have been replaced with metal plate armor, with large rivets and welds exposed at the joints, as if a human was being created using shipbuilding techniques.

Through the gaps in the plate armor, one could vaguely see that what was beating inside was not a heart, but a fist-sized metal Dantian, with a crimson flame burning at its core. Each beat caused the surrounding rune lines to light up.

Several of the ribs had been replaced with metal supports, with Spiritual Qi wires of varying thicknesses wrapped around them, connecting to a larger mechanical array on the back.

Hu Mang chuckled dryly, "This New Demonic Path is really damn advanced."