Chapter 7: Demon Queen, Scourge of the World
It has to be said, being rich was great.
Nourished by top-grade medicinal baths and the abundant Qi and Blood from beast meat, Jiang Mu’s exhausted body recovered at an incredible rate. He was able to walk around in less than half a day.
Still, his legs felt unsteady when he walked.
He looked like a man who’d had his very essence drained by a succubus.
That afternoon, he went to the Demon-slaying Bureau.
Seeing the pathetic way he wobbled with every step, the others all shot him looks of ridicule and contempt.
When Xu Fu had mentioned that the kid was going to start cultivating, they had all been expecting a joke. Now, it looked like the kid had clearly been ’cultivating’ at a brothel.
Sure enough, a dandy is always a dandy. A hopeless case.
Jiang Mu didn’t bother explaining and went straight to find Xu Fu.
"Demon Fiend corpses?"
Xu Fu put down the document in his hands and looked up at him, puzzled. "Why are you asking about that?"
Jiang Mu said,
"I just want to get a look at one, to gain some practical experience."
Xu Fu glanced at his haggard appearance, and a smirk played on his lips. "Haven’t you seen enough beautiful sirens?" he teased. "Why run to a place like this to get your fill?"
Perhaps feeling his teasing had gone a little too far, he cleared his throat and said in a more serious tone,
"Demon Fiend corpses are highly prone to breeding pestilence, so they’re usually incinerated on the spot. Even the valuable ones are specially sealed and sent to the General Office."
"Oh, I see."
Jiang Mu was clearly disappointed to hear that.
Xu Fu thought for a moment and added,
"However, there are a few low-level Demon remains in the ice cellar used for anatomical research. You can go take a look. I’ll have someone take you. As a Hall Master, you have the authority to view them."
"Thank you!"
Jiang Mu’s eyes lit up.
Xu Fu called over a subordinate, gave him a few instructions, and had him take Jiang Mu to the ice cellar.
Watching Jiang Mu’s wobbling figure depart, Xu Fu shook his head. ’Ah, this young master... He probably just wants something to brag about to women, and that’s why he came here to gawk at a Demon.’
He pushed the thought aside, his gaze falling back to the document in his hand. His brow furrowed.
Then, he pulled out a secret letter.
’What on earth does the Astronomical Bureau want? The Demon Queen was burned to death. Why are they still...’
Xu Fu’s eyes shifted.
Four years ago, to ensure its survival, Jing Country offered its Princess—hailed as the ’Most Beautiful Woman in the World’—in a political marriage.
The new Emperor, his judgment clouded by lust, went against all counsel and made her the Empress.
However, the Empress suffered from a strange affliction that made it impossible for anyone to get near her. Heeding the advice of sycophantic courtiers, the Emperor spared no expense in public labor to construct the Lu Platform. He gathered Warlocks from across the land to cure her with Secret Techniques, hoping to end her suffering.
After this, the demonic scourge worsened. Demonic creatures ran rampant, natural disasters struck frequently, foreign tribes launched incessant invasions, and rebellions flared up from time to time.
The people lived in terror, and resentment was rampant.
And Jing Country itself was ultimately destroyed amidst the demonic plague.
Under these circumstances, rumors and prophecies spread like wildfire, all claiming the "Demon Queen was a plague upon the world."
Besieged by troubles from within and without, and spurred on by the circulating prophecies, the Emperor finally came to his senses. He executed the fawning courtiers at his side, issued an edict of self-reproach, and had the Demon Queen—the supposed scourge of the nation and its people—burned to death upon the Lu Platform.
"Such a fatal beauty... a truly fatal beauty..."
Xu Fu murmured with a sigh.
—
Upon arriving at the ice cellar, Jiang Mu saw the stored Demon carcasses.
But looking at these low-level Demons, he was left speechless.
A husky, a honey badger, a koala, a groundhog... and some creature that looked like a Psyduck.
"This..."
"Sir, these are the Demons’ original forms."
The man in charge explained, "Once these low-level Demons are forced back to their original forms, this is what they look like."
"Alright."
Jiang Mu stealthily touched the Demon carcasses a few times.
But there was no reaction.
’It seems it has to be a fresh, warm corpse for this to work.’
With that, Jiang Mu’s hopes were completely dashed. He had no choice but to go home and resume his grueling training.
...
And so, several days passed in the blink of an eye.
「At high noon.」
Jiang Mu stood shirtless on the scorching sand.
The blazing sun was like a furnace, baking his back until it gleamed. Every muscle in his body was pulled taut, like a fully drawn bow.
His arms were extended, fingers loosely interlocked. His stance was as immovable as a mountain, firmly planted in the Tiger Subduing Posture described in the Body Casting Skill.
Within his body, the Qi and Blood he had accumulated from days of medicinal meals and beast meat worked in concert with his breathing technique, generating wisps of True Qi.
The True Qi sank, spreading through his limbs and into every corner of his body.
Jiang Mu could clearly feel a subtle, tingling ache spreading from deep within his bones.
It was as if countless tiny hammers were forging his very marrow anew.
When the static posture was complete, Jiang Mu slowly exhaled, his body shifting from stillness into motion.
Mountain Push, Coiling Pine, Moon Grasp...
As he coordinated his movements with an increasingly masterful breathing rhythm, the warm current of True Qi inside him grew even more active.
Over and over, it surged through his body, clearing the finest, most obstructed channels.
CRACK!
Accompanied by a crisp crack, like a joint popping out of place and back in, Jiang Mu slowly relaxed his posture.
He took a deep breath and murmured,
"With the boost from the Demon’s physique, my progress is much faster. At this rate, I should be able to reach the threshold of the First Realm in ten days at most."
During this period, he had pushed his body to its absolute limits during the day, then used Butcher Zhang’s physique to train even more at night.
The results were immediately apparent.
Now, after his medicinal baths, he no longer needed much rest before he could continue practicing.
His own physical foundation was now much stronger.
Furthermore, he could now freely summon the phantom of the "Demon" character.
However, as time went on, Butcher Zhang’s Demon Shadow grew increasingly faint, and the physical power it provided dwindled by the day.
’It seems this ’borrowed’ power isn’t infinite. It gets used up over time.’
Jiang Mu guessed to himself.
Sure enough, after a few more days, Butcher Zhang’s Demon Shadow completely dissipated after a night of cultivation.
Only the slot for the "Demon" character remained.
’This ’power bank’ has finally been drained dry.’
"Well, you’ve fulfilled your historic mission. You helped me get through the toughest starting phase. Rest in peace."
Jiang Mu sighed.
Although he felt a bit of regret, he wasn’t too concerned.
After this period of hellish training, his own body was more than capable of withstanding the rigors of high-intensity Body Forging.
The threshold of the First Realm was just one final step away.
However, according to the manual, the most difficult part of the cultivation path was not just the daily grind, but every breakthrough to a major realm.
In other words, breaking through a realm.
It wasn’t something that would happen naturally once the conditions were met.
It required innate talent and constitution, the aid of external resources, a deeper understanding of and resonance with one’s Cultivation Technique, and that one fleeting moment of "enlightenment."
And even... a bit of luck.
For the vast majority of those in the Body Tempering Stage, the success rate of breaking through from a mortal to the official First Realm was less than fifty percent.
Moreover, failing the first breakthrough attempt would damage one’s foundation, leading to an even lower success rate on the second try.
If one failed to break through three times in a row, the path was basically considered closed forever.
This was the principle known as "three strikes and you’re out."
The higher the Cultivation Level, the narrower the bottleneck.
Therefore, every time a high-realm Cultivator broke through, they had to make exhaustive preparations.
For example: seeking out a Blessed Land and Grotto Heaven; preparing rare treasures to aid the process; conditioning their body and mind to a peak state; and even requesting a master to stand as Guardian, divining an auspicious day, or purifying themselves with incense and baths...
The preparations were endless.
In short: it was difficult. Incredibly so.
The path of cultivation was more difficult than ascending to the heavens!
Jiang Mu was quite anxious about this, and in his heart, he grumbled that his cheat ability wasn’t pulling its weight.
He even started to wonder if, when the time came for his own breakthrough, he should also burn incense, take a ritual bath, visit a temple to make a hefty offering, and find a fortune-teller to pick an auspicious day.
However, he soon discovered he had been completely overthinking it.
...
Time slipped by, marked by sweat and the scent of medicinal herbs.
In a flash, several more days passed.
Heat waves rolled off the sandy ground at noon.
Jiang Mu stood still as a pine.
His skin had taken on a healthy, tanned hue from the constant sun and exercise, and the emerging lines of his muscles were pulled taut in the sunlight.
He took a deep breath and his arms suddenly stretched outwards.
As he stretched, his joints let out a rapid series of cracks, like popping beans.
Then, he sank his shoulders and dropped his elbows.
He smashed a vicious punch into the hardwood stake before him!
BANG!
A dull thud exploded outward.
The hard wooden stake, as thick as a rice bowl, splintered and cracked as wood chips flew in all directions.
Simultaneously, a faint golden glow of Qi and Blood flashed beneath Jiang Mu’s skin and vanished. The beads of sweat on his body were instantly shaken into a fine white mist.
HUUUU—
Jiang Mu let out a long, turbid breath as he relaxed his stance.
He looked down at his arm.
His muscles were now dense and firm, fundamentally different from the flesh-and-blood body he had before.
First Realm!
It happened just like that!
Just a moment ago, he had felt his Qi and Blood surge. He had been about to stop and pick a proper day to attempt his breakthrough, but at that thought, the giant "Demon" character had suddenly appeared.
The next moment, the small amount of demon blood stored in the slot transformed into a torrent of pure energy that flooded his entire body.
Immediately after, he felt his body become lighter.
The so-called unbreakable bottleneck had been pierced as easily as a sheet of paper.
’Hah, it wasn’t that hard after all.’
Jiang Mu looked at the floating "Demon" character before him.
The blood in the slot was almost completely consumed, with only a tiny trace remaining at the bottom.
He finally understood the wondrous function of his cheat ability.
’So it’s a converter and a storage unit.’
’It absorbs Demonic Qi, refines it into demon blood, and stores it. And this demon blood can ignore bottlenecks and force a breakthrough!’
’So, for me, a breakthrough that’s nearly impossible for a normal person... is something I can just casually power through?’
Jiang Mu sighed, a sudden sense of hollowness washing over him.
’How boring.’
He was someone who enjoyed challenges and the feeling of accomplishment that came with them. A smooth ride like this was actually quite unsatisfying.
Jiang Mu slowly clenched his fist.
But regardless, he had now taken this crucial first step, and his footing was firm.
What the future held, he could not yet know.
But at least he now had the right to look up toward the path ahead.
Jiang Mu’s heart was surging with emotion. Just as he was about to close the Demon Slot, he noticed a new point of light beside it.
’What’s this?’
Jiang Mu frowned and focused his mind on the point of light.
The next moment, the last wisp of demon blood from the Demon Slot flowed into it. The previously dim point of light instantly erupted with brilliance.
The next moment, Jiang Mu’s vision blurred.
Beside him, a shadow wreathed in black Demonic Qi had appeared.
Its figure was identical to his own!
Even more amazingly, whatever move Jiang Mu made, the Demon Shadow mirrored it in perfect sync.
’This is... my Demon Shadow?’
Jiang Mu’s heart skipped a beat.
He suddenly had an idea and began to practice his Body Tempering stances.
Sure enough, the Demon Shadow began practicing the stances alongside him, its breathing and qi circulation identical to his own. Jiang Mu could clearly feel that his Body Tempering speed had increased considerably.
’I get it!’
Jiang Mu’s eyes gleamed. ’It’s like two of me are cultivating at the same time, earning double the XP.’
But the surprises didn’t end there.
Soon he discovered that he could even have the Demon Shadow cultivate on its own!
All he had to do was perform the entire routine once, give the Demon Shadow a mental command, and it would continue on its own. The effects of its training were transferred directly to Jiang Mu.
He could gain the benefits of Body Tempering even while resting on the sidelines.
’It’s like having someone else grind for me.’
The only downside was that they couldn’t be too far apart.
If the distance between them exceeded ten zhang, the Demon Shadow would dissipate, as if it had lost its signal.
"This thing is amazing."
Jiang Mu was overjoyed. "This will boost my cultivation speed significantly."
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
Just then, a series of knocks suddenly sounded on the door.