“Master, is this what you wanted?” A pair of horns slowly grew out of Lu Sheng’s forehead as he continued to grow larger. Large amounts of black smoke flowed out from underneath his scales, as if his whole being was on fire.

“What I want?” Qian Du put away her spear and gave Lu Sheng a creepy, twisted look. “You think you hid well? Dumbass!!”

In that instant, her black spear that was over ten meters long transformed into black shadows that covered the sky. It was as if twenty spears shot toward Lu Sheng at once.

All the trees within a one hundred meter radius were instantly shattered, and large cracks and ditches formed in the ground. The black smoke spread, hiding infinite amounts of black bugs that couldn’t be seen by the human eye. Everywhere the smoke touched immediately withered. Even the grass and dirt started melting and squeezed out half-transparent liquid.

“So what if I didn’t hide it well?!” Lu Sheng looked up. His body exploded, transforming into black smoke and instantly growing and covering a radius of at least ten meters.

“Bang!!!”

A huge hand over ten meters thick reached out of the smoke and grabbed at Qian Du, who was still in the air.

Reverse spikes and scales covered the black palm. Extremely hot and poisonous, all the spears that hit the arm fell away with sounds of clashing metal.

“The person who needs to fear is never me!!”

The black smoke faded, revealing Lu Sheng’s huge form. He was almost twenty meters tall, with thick, almost stubby legs, a huge mouth that split from ear to ear, and a second pair of arms that grew from his back. He also gave off thick, black smoke. Right now, Lu Sheng looked more like a frightening half-human, half-horse beast.

He grabbed Qian Du and slammed her into the ground.

“Boom!”

In that instant, the earth shook and the mountains fell. All the trees nearby started shaking, and the yellowish dirt sprayed up to at least ten meters high, carrying bits of rock and wood with them.

“It’s over.” Lu Sheng’s voice now had an attractive, alluring effect. It was deep and dangerous, sometimes close and sometimes far.

“Yes, it’s over.” Qian Du’s voice sounded above Lu Sheng’s head.

“Hiss!”

Everything around them instantly changed as if mixing a palette of colors together. Everything twisted and turned, and then started spinning faster and faster.

Lu Sheng’s vision blurred, then returned to normal.

He was standing in a large cave. In the ceiling was a transparent jade stone. The sunlight shone through the stone, giving the cave a green hue.

Qian Du was standing in front of him, holding a black spear as tall as a human. Virtual black dirt floated behind him.

“Were you scared?” Qian Du asked a strange question.

“Master… what do you mean? Was this supposed to be some test?” Lu Sheng’s voice was calm, but had a hint of killing intent in it. He stared at her. She was only a clone—he’d realized that as soon as he came back to his senses.

“You hid pretty well. A top Divine Weapon Master, yet you were willing to hide and start from the very bottom in the Thousand Sun Sect. Seems like you have a grand plan,” Qian Du said quietly.

“Master, you’re wrong.” Lu Sheng’s gaze fell onto the black spear. “I’m finding my own path and proving some things.”

“Now that I’ve found out about you, what are you going to do?” Qian Du watched Lu Sheng.

“Being a Divine Weapon Master was my past. Now, I’m just an ordinary disciple at the Realm of Snake. I’m your disciple, an ordinary person from the Thousand Sun Sect who wishes to learn from your teaching,” Lu Sheng spoke expressionlessly.

“Then what about your underlings from the Great Song?”

“Those are my family and servants.”

“What about the devils you killed in the Devil Army?”

“Beasts I hunted when I went on occasional hunting trips.”

“Then your body transformation you’ve just performed…”

“That was disciple’s family martial arts that I know a little bit.”

“I understand.”

Qian Du understood what he wanted.

“I’ll teach you about True Qi, but you have to help me with one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Looking for a person.” Qian Du’s gaze turned deep. “A woman who looks exactly like me.”

“In the Great Yin?” Lu Sheng was a little surprised.

“Yes, in the Great Yin. As your payment, I’ll teach you how to make it into the Divine Lord Realm. Your current self is too weak, and will easily be discovered. The tricks you think are perfect can’t deceive Divine Lords or Weapon Masters at all.” Qian Du smiled.

“I understand.” Lu Sheng understood that this was a trade.

Qian Du was not going to expose his identity. Even if she did, all that would come from it was that everyone would fear him even more and possibly mistake him for a spy for other forces. That would cause his plan of secretly cultivating and stealing True Qi to fail.

But now that Qian Du was covering for him, he could use this to his advantage and come into contact with the secrets of Divine Lords and Weapon Masters earlier.

“To be honest, if it weren’t for the fact that I knew your background, I might have killed you just now because of the Devil Aura on you. You look too much like an ancient devil,” Qian Du explained quietly.

“Is that so?” Lu Sheng’s huge form disappeared into large amounts of black smoke again. The black smoke ball slowly shrank until it was only a few meters tall.

The smoke faded, revealing Lu Sheng’s original face. Other than having a layer of black scales on his lower body, the rest of him was naked, showing off his hard, defined muscles lines.

Qian Du threw him a black robe.

“Put that on. How is your True Qi cultivation?”

“Only the second level,” Lu Sheng answered calmly as he draped the robe over himself. “Both the Light of the Great Sun Technique and the Way of the Hollow Spirit that Master taught me are at the second level.”

“What about that Melting Core Earth Heart Chant you took from the sect?” Qian Du seemed to really treat him as an ordinary disciple.

“It’s also at the second level.” Lu Sheng answered.

“Finish cultivating Way of the Hollow Spirit first. I will give you the following Arts. Don’t hide, just go for it. With me covering for you, hiding would only be a waste of time.” Qian Du threw her black spear into the air.

The black spear shot up with the whistling of wind, spinning quickly and becoming smaller and smaller. Soon, it was the size of a walnut. Qian Du carefully placed it in her sleeve.

“Additionally, I don’t know how you got this far, but you have hope to combine Devil, Qi, and True Arts. However, if you don’t find a Divine Weapon or a Devil Blade to strengthen your body, your body and spirit will not be able to take the explosive power after doing so,” Qian Du continued.

Lu Sheng’s pupils widened. He didn’t expect for Qian Du to see through this too. “Master, please enlighten me.”

“Your path can either be purely becoming a Devil, giving up on the rest, or you can find a Divine Weapon or Devil Blade to merge with, and walk the regular path.”

“Are there no other choices?”

“No. The only reason you’re able to take the Devil path is because of that special Devil Aura you got. This is the first time I’ve seen someone being able to use such powerful Devil Aura without a Devil Blade,” Qian Du said puzzledly.

Lu Sheng fell silent.

“Your greatest problem right now is that your spirit is too weak. You can’t perfectly control your body transformations because of this. Otherwise, there shouldn’t be this situation where all three powers are so independent. Usually one power would devour the other two.

“The Way of the Hollow Spirit can strengthen both your mind and your body at the same time. Cultivate it. After you finish, you can come back into the Secret Area.” Qian Du grabbed at the air, and a tiny, round, and golden pearl appeared in her hand.

She threw it to Lu Sheng. “This is the larva form of Devil Blade Seven Insect Jade Flower. It can help you conceal your strength and aura, provide you with Spiritual essence, and serve as my token at the same time. Don’t lose it. When in trouble, display it. There’s almost nobody in the Thousand Sun Sect who won’t respect me.”

“I understand.” Lu Sheng nodded. He tucked the pearl carefully into his waist pocket.

“Okay, you can go back now.” As Qian Du said that, Lu Sheng’s vision blurred and quickly darkened.

Soon, his vision blurred again. He had returned to his cultivation room in his quarters.

Sighing, Lu Sheng stood up. He’d never thought he would be able to trick everyone, but he didn’t think he would have been found out so quickly, either.

Reaching out, he took out the tiny golden pearl. He could almost sense a connection with the Secret Area from inside giving off dense spiritual essence.

“Since master said so, I don’t have to hide anymore.”

He had enough spiritual essence and he had the art. It was time to break through.

Right now, there were three True Arts he was cultivating. The first one was the Way of the Hollow Spirit, the second one was Light of the Great Sun Technique, and the third one was Melting Core Earth Heart Chant.

‘These three arts are where I should start working hard on True Qi.’

“Deep blue.” Without thinking twice, Lu Sheng called out his cheating device immediately. He had found his Qi for both Light of the Great Sun Technique and Way of the Hollow Spirit, so he was technically a beginner.

Glancing at the leftover mental energy, Lu Sheng was shocked.

678 units!?

He didn’t expect there to be this much. Since he had enough, he’d use it. Using the golden pearl, Lu Sheng increased his Way of the Hollow Spirit all the way until the highest, the ninth, level and the Light of the Great Sun Technique to a stunning sixth level—the last three levels had special conditions to fulfill before being able to break through to them. It was even faster for the third and last art, the Melting Core Earth Heart Chant. He got to level nine in an instant.

In total, the three True Arts cost Lu Sheng 155 units of mental energy. So, he still had 523 units left.

The Light of the Great Sun Technique was only at level six, but even so, Lu Sheng’s True Qi level increased all the way to the top point of the seventh level in the Realm of Snake.

To other people, when they collected enough True Qi, at most it would just be the top point for their black membrane. They still had to slowly practice other physical skills and moves. But for Lu Sheng, all those were unnecessary. If his True Qi was at this level, he was at this level.

He had come to a temporary stopping point. There was no way to break through anymore. To break through the seventh level of the Light of the Great Sun Technique, he needed a special, blue light environment where there was no heat at all.

Improving so much at once, it was already night when Lu Sheng finished.

He stood up and walked into the yard. Duanmu Wan was instructing a few servants around the house.

The entire yard was clean and tidy.

The floors were much cleaner and the walls lost all their grub. A few places where the wallpaper was too old were also restored.