Top-Tier Perception Starts From Basic Fist Techniques

The Martial Dao has condensed, so all that is left is to wait quietly for the ten years to run out. When they do, I can project the power of my true body, break the Martial Dao, and take a Martial Dao fragment out of it. Breaking it as things stand now would indeed be very hard...

Lu Changsheng shook his head.

The Martial Dao was climbing at every moment. How terrible was a Martial Dao condensed out of the will of the multitude? It was nothing short of absolute power and couldn't be broken easily. He called up the Status Panel to look over where he stood.

[Status Panel]

Host: Lu Changsheng

Title: Flesh and Blood Progenitor

Flesh and Blood Martial Dao: Fifth Growth (66%)

Thanks to the demon plants that had come in on and off over those years and to the work he had put into training, the Fifth Growth progress of his Flesh and Blood Martial Dao stood at sixty-six percent. However, it still fell some way short of a breakthrough into Sixth Growth.

The demon nation has been coming down harder on the blood descendants these past years. Obtaining demon plants is getting harder for them as time passes, and fewer and fewer of those plants make it back out.

He badly wanted to go into the demon nation, but he held himself back. It was only a while longer. Only six years had gone, and he still had four. After a few more years, he would see how matters looked.

In the end, Lu Changsheng continued to stay in the capital of Jing.

One year, two, and three years went by in no time. In those three years, the entire territory of the human race had undergone earth-shattering changes.

There was essentially no room left for the demon race to live inside human territory. Demons who slipped in could no longer work their way any deeper, and the moment one was found, there was only one road open to it, which was death.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

After all, humanity had changed too much. More than eight tenths of all people had been converted into blood descendants, and they were no longer completely unable to fight back if they met a demon.

Fourth Growth blood descendants were also coming up like bamboo shoots after rain. A great many of them, each roughly the equal of a demon king, which was enough to keep the human race safe.

The Martial Dao the world had condensed had long since reached a ceiling of Sixth Growth. The pity of it was that Lu Changsheng himself had not yet reached Sixth Growth.

"Nine years..." Lu Changsheng murmured softly. "One last year left, and my Flesh and Blood Martial Dao sits at ninety-five percent. It's five percent short of a breakthrough into Sixth Growth..."

The figure on his Status Panel had held at ninety-five percent for months. Nothing had come of that time. Not one demon plant had made it out of the demon nation, and getting any more of them through blood descendants had plainly stopped being possible.

Another year of training at the steady, orderly pace would very likely still not carry him into Sixth Growth. But what did it matter? What Lu Changsheng had come for was a Martial Dao fragment. The Martial Dao had condensed, so all he had to do was wait out the ten years quietly. When the power of his true body was projected across, his true body would break the Martial Dao and take the fragment, and there would be nothing difficult about it.

Lu Changsheng wanted to pass that year in peace, but it appeared that the demon race was not going to allow it.

Before long, the emperor of the Jing Dynasty came before him to report. "Lord Progenitor, something has changed in the demon nation. More than ten ancient demons there have joined hands and put out an order to wipe the blood descendants out.

“The whole demon nation has fallen into a storm of blood, and countless blood descendants have been slaughtered. Once the demons have finished slaughtering the ones inside the demon nation, they will certainly come at us. What would you have us do?"

Lu Changsheng did not simply take the emperor's word for it. He sent for Chen Ping and posed a question. "Chen Ping, what has reached you?"

"Progenitor, what the emperor reports is true. Our blood descendants in the demon nation are suffering terribly. There are both dead and wounded. It will not take long before every one of them there is cut down."

Lu Changsheng's brows drew together slightly, and he sounded genuinely puzzled. "The ancient demons of that nation keep out of one another's affairs as a rule, and not one of them listens to another.

“Why have they suddenly joined hands? Sure, the blood descendants have grown fast there, but it should not have been enough to make an ancient demon feel threatened."

Chen Ping hesitated, opened his mouth and closed it again, but in the end spoke. "Progenitor, we have been piecing together guesses from the news we have. It may be that the Demon Progenitor, the highest thing in the demon race, gave the order, and that is why the ancient demons have joined forces."

Lu Changsheng's eyes narrowed slightly. "A Demon Progenitor?"

If it genuinely was one, there would be trouble. A Demon Progenitor matched the Nascent Soul or Martial Saint Realm. Should one learn that Lu Changsheng was the source the blood descendants came from and move against him directly, what was he going to hold it off with?

Lu Changsheng was silent for a while. He knew that if a Demon Progenitor came at him, he could not possibly deal with them. Only two options were open to him.

The first was to wait it out in the capital of Jing, dragging things out as far as he could, ideally as far as the end of the ten years, since only one year remained in any case. Once the ten years were up, what was a mere Demon Progenitor worth?

Would a Demon Progenitor give him that year, though? Once they moved, they could kill Lu Changsheng in a day or even two hours, and all the years of work he had put in would be all for nothing.

That left the other course, which was to strike first. No Demon Progenitor had shown itself openly yet, and none had turned its mind to killing the Flesh and Blood Progenitor. While that held, Lu Changsheng could go into the demon nation himself and seize demon plants.

With enough demon plants, one month of training could carry him through to Sixth Growth. Once he stood in that realm, a Demon Progenitor moving against him did not strike fear into him at all. However, going into the demon nation still meant he might come face to face with one.

Lu Changsheng glanced at Chen Ping and at the emperor. "How much do you know about the Demon Progenitors?"

The emperor shook his head. Demon Progenitors were very nearly a legend. How was he to have anything specific about them?

Chen Ping hesitated but still spoke. "Progenitor, some rumors have reached me. It is nothing I would call definite news, but rumor has it that the Demon Progenitor has been asleep all this while, which is why they haven’t appeared for several thousand years.

“Something has happened recently that has woken them up, but they haven’t fully awakened just yet. Their full awakening will still take a while. That is why the ancient demons have not struck straight at the human dynasties and are clearing the demon nation first. What they are actually doing is preparing the grounds for their awakening."

A sharp light crossed Lu Changsheng's eyes at Chen Ping's words. None of it was definite. Chen Ping had reasoned it out from scraps of talk coming out of the demon nation, from back-alley gossip, and from what amounted to old stories which were not necessarily accurate.

But it still gave him something to think on. Suppose the Demon Progenitor genuinely was waking up, then this was the best possible moment for him to move, as he could work the gap in the timing.

As long as a Demon Progenitor wasn't on the field, the ancient demons could do nothing to him at all. If he had just one month with enough demon plants, he could break through, and a Demon Progenitor waking after that could do nothing to him either.

There was naturally some risk in it. If they woke early, or if Lu Changsheng going into the demon nation himself was what provoked them, what would happen then? Where there was opportunity, there would always be risk.

Beyond that, sitting in the capital of Jing for a year left a very large chance of the Demon Progenitor moving, and once they made their move, Lu Changsheng would not have the strength to resist them.

A man better keep his fate in his own hands.

Lu Changsheng did not think about it for long before his mind was made up. Sitting still and waiting for death was not an option. The only thing left was to go into the demon nation and gamble on it.

He acted on the thought at once and had Chen Ping mark out the exact locations of the demon soil inside the demon nation. That was no trouble for Chen Ping as there were a great many blood descendants in the demon nation, and any information that was not deeply hidden had already reached him.