Top-Tier Perception Starts From Basic Fist Techniques

The status panel ranked him at Fourth Growth. Fourth Growth meant achieving the Dao Foundation level or Foundation Establishment. In the way this world ranked its true demons, that would put him at the level of a demon king.

A demon king! He was strong enough to hold a region as his own. Even inside a demon nation, a demon king counted for something.

However, his growth had run at fifteen percent a month for the past two months only because of the demon flower. With the flower gone, his pace naturally fell off again.

"The flower is finished, and I've achieved Fourth Growth, so my progress will drop further from here. I need better demon plants and more of them, enough to hold a pace of ten percent a month or better," Lu Changsheng murmured to himself.

At Fourth Growth, holding even ten percent a month was going to be difficult.

Finding demon plants is more than one man can do. It would take the temple's reach. If the temple curled up inside Drum Mountain City, it would never come across a demon plant, so it's time to expand the temple again.

The plan was settled in his mind. He sent for Chen Ping and Kao Ping.

"Chen Ping, how has the temple come along while I was away?"

"Progenitor, the temple has produced two blood descendants at Third Growth and thirty-two at Second Growth. The number of converted blood descendants has held steady at about a hundred thousand..."

The Temple of Flesh and Blood truly did have a hundred thousand blood descendants now! It was an enormous figure.

True demons were indeed numerous, but that was because they originated long ago in ancient times. Blood descendants were a different matter. They could be converted from humans in an endless stream, and humanity was also extremely numerous.

Blood descendants could even bear children, and those children would be blood descendants from birth. If expanded on a large enough scale, they would outnumber true demons without question.

"Two of them have achieved Third Growth?" Lu Changsheng asked.

That made him curious. Third Growth meant crossing into transcendence, which was no small thing.

"Yes, those two rose out of ordinary blood descendants on their own. How they're to be placed is for you to decide." Chen Ping asked with great care.

A Third Growth blood descendant was something else entirely. They were a match for a greater demon and a formidable weapon in their own right. Chen Ping would not dare place such men under his own authority. That was for the progenitor to do, and Lu Changsheng understood him perfectly.

"From now on, we will raise a temple guard force. Every blood descendant at Second Growth is enrolled in it. The ones who have achieved Third Growth will rank as Divine Guards. They'll be known as blood descendant Divine Guards and answer directly to me," he said, arranging everything at once.

The temple guard force and the blood descendant Divine Guards. As long as one controlled these two departments, they essentially controlled the Temple of Flesh and Blood.

"Yes, Progenitor." Chen Ping committed the instructions to memory.

"Chen Ping and Kao Ping, you have both done well these past months. Come here, I'm bestowing upon you some flesh to carry you into Third Growth."

Lu Changsheng had always been fair about reward and punishment. He wasn't stingy in granting rewards to men who had done well. This time, he meant to use as much blood and flesh as needed to take the pair straight to Third Growth. The temple already had blood descendants at that level.

If these two were to stand any lower, what authority would they carry, and how would they command anyone?

Chen Ping's heart leaped up to his throat. He had worked without rest to build the temple, and what had it been for if not this? His own talent for cultivation was poor, and he knew it. However, as long as he worked hard, the progenitor could raise him to heaven in a single stride.

Swoosh!

He swept a hand, and a great mass of flesh wrapped itself around both men, squirming ceaselessly as it bored into them. Though there was pain in it, the two men were already blood descendants with strong constitutions, so pain on that scale was bearable.

Carrying the two of them straight to Third Growth was another matter. That was in the range of transcendence, so it did not come easily. It cost Lu Changsheng roughly a tenth of his own flesh to get both men across the line.

Though the loss was heavy, a period of recovery was all he needed to get right back without any lasting damage to his foundation. The temple needed Chen Ping and Kao Ping to grow and run it, and to put their hearts into hunting demon plants so there was no reason to be stingy with them.

"There, you're both at Third Growth now. At this level, you're even a match for a greater demon. Go and get used to your strength. From here on, your focus is growing the temple and expanding past Drum Mountain City, creating blood descendants as you go.

“And keep a close watch for demon plants and collect them at all costs. Those are the Temple's priorities from now on." Lu Changsheng gave them the two tasks that mattered most.

Chen Ping was the first to understand Lu Changsheng's intention.

The progenitor is letting the temple expand again!

Upon hearing his priorities, great delight showed on his face. The past months had been stifling for him. He was an ambitious man himself, and with a force the size of the temple under his hand, how could he stay penned inside the small Drum Mountain City?

"I will carry out your command!" Chen Ping exclaimed, withdrawing respectfully. With the progenitor's approval in hand, the time had come for him to stretch out his arms and work. He vowed to do better and see the progenitor more pleased.

𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

The sight of the two men burning with spirit made Lu Changsheng nod faintly at them.

Time to convert the old couple.

With that thought, he left the temple and went back to the Kao residence.

The residence was just as it had always been. On Lu Changsheng's orders, the temple's expansion and its conversions had kept well clear of the place, and not one person inside it had been made a blood descendant.

However carefully it was kept from them, though, the whole city had been converted. How could the household not have caught wind of something? They had definitely noticed.

"The young master is back!"

Everyone brightened at the sight of him. Kao Wen had been living away from home lately and was being secretive from morning to night. Nobody knew what he was doing, and the servants also did not dare ask.

Every time he came back, the master and the madam were delighted, and a household's servants naturally saw all sorts of benefits when the masters were pleased. They rather hoped he would come home often.

In the hall, both parents had their eyes on their son. His mother held him in her arms, fussing over him. "My son, you're home at last. Let your mother look at you. Have you gotten thinner?"

His father was looking him over too with a thread of doubt.

The old man was not so easily fooled, and he had sensed something. In any case, Lu Changsheng had no intention of hiding it any longer. He had gone home to lay his cards on the table and tell his parents everything.

"Kao Wen, you've come home to talk about something, haven't you?" his father said slowly.

Lu Changsheng glanced around the hall. There were maids in it, and the steward was waiting outside. There were a good many people in total, but he did not send any of them away. After this day, every person in the household would be a blood descendant. With the whole of Drum Mountain City in the temple's hands, what was there left to be careful of?

"Father and Mother, I have a method that will rid you both of sickness and pain and give you your youth back."

"Hmm?" His father's eyes turned sharp instantly, and the old man was shaking. "You... you've been converted into a blood descendant?"

He gave his son no chance to answer. "That Temple of Flesh and Blood reeks of evil, and the court will stamp it out sooner or later. How could you wade into water this muddy?

“Once the imperial army arrives, the temple will be blown to ash, and every blood descendant will be called to account. On top of that, I've heard that the temple controls its blood descendants and drives them where it pleases. What kind of good does that place do for you? How foolish! You've been an utter fool!"

The old man was torn apart. He went through every failing of the Temple of Flesh and Blood, described its wolfish ambitions, and came back again to how the court would destroy it in the end. He had no faith in it at all. Given time, it was bound to end.