Chapter 206: The Demonic Heart Can Also Be Utilized

Two days later, Chen Luo emerged from his cultivation chamber.

The medicinal supplies had run out.

Ding Zhao, who had gone down the mountain to purchase supplementary herbs, failed to return. This incident prompted Grandpa Sun to personally venture up the mountain in search of him. Over the past year, Ding Zhao and Grandpa Sun’s granddaughter had become cultivation partners, further strengthening their bond. Naturally, Grandpa Sun was deeply concerned about Ding Zhao’s disappearance.

“When did this happen?” Chen Luo inquired, his voice carrying a hint of urgency. The interruption in his medicinal supply was affecting his cultivation progress, making it essential for him to address the matter immediately.

“We discovered it last night,” Grandpa Sun replied, his face etched with worry. “Seaheart Leaf is only available for purchase at Pingshan Creek, and we regularly go there for supplies. Normally, a round trip should take no more than a day.”

“Give me one of Ding Zhao’s personal belongings,” Chen Luo requested.

Complying with the instruction, Grandpa Sun promptly produced one of Ding Zhao’s garments. Chen Luo carefully extracted a spirit talisman and dabbed it on the clothing. Channeling spiritual energy through his index finger, he tapped the center of the talisman.

The spirit talisman instantly sprang to life, transforming into a streak of light that shot off with a whoosh. Chen Luo, paying no further heed to Grandpa Sun, followed suit. Mounting his sword, he soared into the sky, hot on the yellow talisman’s tail.

After half a day’s chase, Chen Luo finally descended from the heavens.

The yellow talisman had alighted on a rock and was now adhered firmly to its surface. Chen Luo approached the boulder and, upon touching it, discovered a trace of blood on the stone’s face.

A tribulation cultivator? Chen Luo thought, dipping his index finger into the blood and furrowing his brow slightly.

Whoosh.

A mountain breeze rustled through the nearby woods, carrying with it a faint murmur of voices. The sound was like the distant chatter of dreamers—clearly in his ears, yet impossible to decipher.

Chen Luo’s gaze turned toward the source.

He spread his divine sense, but found nothing amiss. As he retracted his perception and was about to turn away, he realized a turtle had appeared on the rock where the talisman had lain—its arrival seemingly unnoticed.

There it was—a turtle lying flat on the rock. Its body was pitch-black, and it remained perfectly still, two beady little eyes fixed unwaveringly on Chen Luo.

A mountain spirit?

Chen Luo recognized this creature. He had encountered it before on his way to Guoshan County. But times had changed; he was no longer threatened by a mere mountain spirit. His late Foundation Establishment spiritual energy radiated outward, colliding with the tortoise.

“Heh!”

With a chuckle, Chen Luo saw the tortoise vanish from the rock in a flash.

Expanding his divine sense, he quickly picked up the tortoise’s trail.

Chen Luo sprang to his feet, transforming into a streak of light as he chased after the disappearing tortoise.

Man and tortoise darted through the mountain forests.

Eventually, they reached a valley where the tortoise’s form dissipated, vanishing like it had never been. Chen Luo halted, his divine sense sweeping over the valley. Nearby, he spotted a small courtyard enclosed by a bamboo fence.

“Who could be controlling these mountain spirits?” Chen Luo remained at the courtyard entrance, unwilling to barge in recklessly.

Ever since his opponent captured Ding Zhao and cut off his supply of spiritual materials, they had been subtly probing him. Now, more than ever, caution was paramount. He didn’t want to end up like those rash mountain sect cultivators who recklessly charged into unknown formations, only to be ambushed and slain.

For Chen Luo, there were many mysteries surrounding creatures like the mountain spirit. When faced with the unknown, caution was paramount.

He swept his divine sense around the courtyard but detected no abnormalities.

erring on the side of caution, Chen Luo took out three talismans. Using his tried-and-true method, he sent them to probe the area. As before, the paper figures emerged unscathed.

“Formations rise!”

To ensure his safety, Chen Luo produced nine magical swords. With a swift motion, he activated the Yinmu Sword Formation. The swords descended from nine different directions, encircling the courtyard in a protective barrier.

The formation was complete.

With this second-order formation in place, even if he encountered an ambush, he could harness its power to counter-attack.

He had to understand why this entity had kidnapped Ding Zhao. Otherwise, his cultivation would continue to be disrupted. Pingshan Creek was a crucial source for auxiliary medicinal supplies; he couldn’t afford to abandon it.

Stepping into the courtyard, Chen Luo, like the paper figures before him, circled the area.

The yard was overgrown with weeds. The once cultivated beds now lay vacant, choked by dried grass. The surroundings appeared normal, as if it truly were just an abandoned shack.

Creak.

Opening the door, Chen Luo found the interior awash with dust, clearly uninhabited for years. Navigating around chairs and tables shrouded in a thick blanket of grime, his gaze finally fell upon a bed tucked away in a corner. This bed stood out amidst the squalor, its sheets and blankets immaculate and even bearing the scent of new fabric.

Ding Zhao lay asleep atop these pristine covers. His left hand bore some minor wounds, but he appeared otherwise unscathed. He slept soundly, as if not a captive at all, but rather a drunken reveler who had simply wandered away from home.

“Are you truly unharmed?”

Chen Luo’s mind swirled with questions. He probed Ding Zhao with spiritual energy, finding his inner essence to be not only strong but unusually vibrant, almost as though he had consumed a potent spiritual tonic. His cheeks were flushed crimson, a stark contrast to his surroundings.

Chen Luo’s search of the room revealed little else until his eyes fell upon a triangular stone at the foot of the bed, no larger than a palm.

The stone seemed as if it had been singed by fire, utterly ordinary in appearance. It carried no trace of spiritual energy, nor did it shimmer with any mysterious glow. No matter how many times Chen Luo examined it, it remained an enigma.

In this otherwise unremarkable room, the stone stood out as the only object of potential significance.

After a moment’s deliberation, Chen Luo sealed the black stone with a spirit talisman and placed it into his Pouch of Holding. Only then did he rise and take Ding Zhao away.

“Strange.”

Once outside the courtyard, Chen Luo conducted another sweep with his divine sense, but the result was the same—no sign of anyone. The mountain spirit tortoise had also vanished. Everything that had transpired seemed like a dream, yet Chen Luo knew someone had been testing him.

Still, he remained unsure of their true intentions.

That stone must have been what they wanted to give him.

Unable to find an answer, Chen Luo decided there was no point in further speculation. He was confident that whoever it was would return sooner or later, as long as their motive wasn’t purely malicious.

When the time came, he’d confront them head-on, adapting his tactics as needed. With this resolution, he flicked his sleeve, turning into a streak of light that vanished into the horizon, carrying the unconscious Ding Zhao with him.

It wasn’t until Chen Luo had been gone for some time that a faint silhouette materialized inside the mountain hut. The vanished mountain spirit tortoise reappeared and, observing the direction in which Chen Luo had departed, spoke a single line:

“Does this fellow truly possess the potential you described?”

“The one who caught the old fox’s eye must have his secrets. Such a person should join us in our quest for the true immortal path.”

A cold wind drifted through the forest as another voice echoed:

This voice floated ethereally, like a specter, yet from beginning to end, no figure materialized.

“Let’s hope so. We’re on the verge of becoming pariahs, hunted like rats,” the tortoise grumbled, its form once again dissolving into mist.

“The path of immortality is always convoluted.”

A layer of white mist enveloped the forest.

By the time the mist dissipated, the small courtyard within the valley had vanished without a trace, leaving only profound quietness.

Ever since Ding Zhao’s disappearance, the trade routes had returned to tranquility, as if nothing had ever occurred. Three months passed in this manner, and all began to view that incident as a fluke.

Chen Luo sat in his cultivation room, continuing to amass his practice.

His attempts at the Foundation Returning Pill remained unsuccessful. The intricacy of crafting a pill for the peak of Foundation Establishment approached that of tier-3 medicinal pills. However, mastering such a pill would place him well within reach of becoming a tier-3 pill master. Consequently, for his recent cultivation efforts, Chen Luo relied on the Pure Origin Primordial Qi Pill.

The Pure Origin Primordial Qi Pill was originally a spirit medicine for the late Foundation Establishment stage, and its effects were more than sufficient for Chen Luo’s current state.

With the recent aid of the Pure Origin Primordial Qi Pill, Chen Luo had increased his spiritual energy dragons by two, reaching a total of fifty-two.

The cultivation span in the late Foundation Establishment stage was significantly larger. In the early Foundation Establishment, the number of spiritual energy dragons ranged from one to ten, while in the middle stage, it ranged from ten to fifty. The difference between these two stages was already quite remarkable. However, compared to the late Foundation Establishment stage, the disparity between the previous stages was nothing.

In the late Foundation Establishment stage, the number of spiritual energy dragons ranged from fifty to ninety-nine!

This represented a vast gulf of forty-nine, equivalent to the total sum of spirit dragons in both the early and middle Foundation Establishment stages combined. This clearly illustrated the immense difficulty of cultivating in the late Foundation Establishment stage. Even among late-stage cultivators, there were significant differences in power. Both fifty and ninety-nine spirit dragons fell within the late Foundation Establishment range, but the disparity in strength between them was natural.

What Chen Luo was doing now was accumulating power. By utilizing pills and the assistance of his remaining spirit meridians, he aimed to shorten the process of this accumulation.

This step may sound simple, but its execution is incredibly daunting.

The first hurdle is the spiritual meridians. In the entire villainous cultivation realm, there are only seven second-tier spiritual meridians, all occupied by seasoned Old Demons at the peak of Foundation Establishment. Chen Luo was only able to secure one thanks to his ‘Dage’ Khan Jiu. Holding onto this spot requires a combination of factors, the most significant being that news hasn’t fully spread; Gu Demon Khan Jiu’s reputation can still be leveraged. The second key factor is the formation.

Even a second-tier formation master has the confidence to pull this off.

Beyond the spiritual meridians, there are pills, spirit materials, spirit stone consumption, cultivation techniques, and numerous other overlapping considerations. It’s only due to Chen Luo’s quick wit, coupled with Elder An and ‘Dage’ Han Jiu’s support, that he manages to practice cultivation as steadily as he does. For anyone else, achieving a similar level of stability would be essentially impossible. Even Su Linlin, a prodigy backed by the Hu Clan, must venture out and complete clan trials. Let alone rogue cultivators who struggle to meet their basic needs.

Chen Luo sat cross-legged, eyes closed, a pill dissolving in his belly.

His daily cultivation resumed. As he activated the Demonic Heart Art, wisps of gray-white energy began to envelop him.

Soon, the medicinal pill’s potency dissipated, and once again, images materialized in Chen Luo’s mind. This time, he hesitated before deciding not to dive in.

These Demonic Hearts can be useful too.

The mummy’s brain offered a suggestion within the depths of Chen Luo’s thoughts.

This revelation opened up new possibilities for Chen Luo. He didn’t need to micromanage every situation personally. Just like how he could harness external demonic hearts to bypass certain limitations, he could also manipulate other ‘demonic hearts’ to serve his ends—essentially using one form of evil against another!

Taking this concept further, he could even cultivate his own cadre of ‘demonic heart’ minions.

He would send these minions out to ‘rob’ others while he lounged at home, collecting the fruits of their labor. It dawned on him that this might be how the legendary Void Sage on Mount Dao operated—those paintings of demonic hearts surrounding him were likely his ‘gang’ of henchmen!

As Chen Luo continued his cultivation, he once again sensed a familiar presence.

In front of him, a martial artist faced a life-and-death dilemma.

On a stormy night, the blade-wielding fighter stared at two hostages held by his enemies—one was his mother, the other his wife.