Essence Devouring Art

After Guang Shen’s group of three left,

within two days,

several more groups from different factions entered Canyun Mountain—

the White Whale Martial Arts Hall, the Fangcun Sword Hall, and the Four Seas Gang.

Mengqingshan and Cloud Heaven Flow were both prominent figures in their respective factions.

Even Zhao Wei, a Hall Master, was not someone they could ignore. Upon sensing that something was amiss, the major factions couldn’t just turn a blind eye and risk disheartening their subordinates.

Unfortunately, they were destined to arrive with resentment and leave with disappointment.

In fact, Wu Dao had been so thorough in destroying the bodies and erasing all traces that he had even wiped away any sign of the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui.

They couldn’t even determine if the killer was human or the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui, leaving them without a single vague suspect.

For a long time to come,

this was fated to become a cold case.

...

As for Wu Dao,

after leaving Canyun Mountain,

he made some inquiries and found out the location of the White Whale Martial Arts Hall’s headquarters, also gaining a general understanding of its personnel structure.

The White Whale Martial Arts Hall was a faction that had emerged in Guangqing Prefecture in recent decades.

Leveraging the legacy of the former Giant Whale Sect and the iron-fisted methods of its leadership, it quickly became one of the Overlords of Guangqing Prefecture, capable of wrestling with the Four Seas Gang.

The Grandmaster, Qi Canghai.

According to rumor, he was a Primordial Qi Sect master who had undergone the Third Rebirth and opened the Celestial Human Bridge in his Qi Sea Dantian.

His Overlord Whale Fist,

and his body refined by the Giant Whale Skill Horizontal Training,

had reached a state of perfection, earning him a fearsome reputation.

In the Jianghu of Guangqing Prefecture, he was secretly known as the "White Whale King," a title that put him on par with Menghuai Mountain, the "Black Whale King" and Gang Leader of the Four Seas Gang to the south.

The White Whale Martial Arts Hall he commanded was even more extraordinary.

Over the decades,

as the Dali Dynasty continued to weaken, local governments were gradually corrupted, and official rules and regulations became virtually nonexistent.

Various Jianghu factions and all walks of life expanded brazenly during this period, with the White Whale Martial Arts Hall being one of the largest among them.

Today,

not only had their martial arts halls blossomed everywhere, with masters as numerous as the clouds and nearly ten thousand disciples, but their influence also extended into every trade and industry in the northern part of Guangqing Prefecture.

Brothels, gambling dens, docks, restaurants, escort agencies, mines, and even a monopoly on the security industry...

The White Whale Martial Arts Hall, a martial arts hall in name only,

had become a massive conglomerate of "fists, power, and fortune."

Countless struggling commoners dreamed of joining them to become one of the elite—superior to others, with no worries about food or clothing.

One could say that in the northern part of Guangqing Prefecture, the will of the White Whale Martial Arts Hall was more effective than the word of the Prefectural Governor; they were the undisputed underground emperors.

Once someone held a position of power within it,

they could truly have whatever they wanted. Wealth and beauties were readily available, and they could essentially act with impunity within Guangqing Prefecture.

If Wu Dao wanted to leverage their influence to quickly gather information on anomalies, the White Whale Martial Arts Hall’s vast intelligence network would definitely meet his needs.

Beyond learning about the White Whale Martial Arts Hall,

Wu Dao didn’t rush off to Lancang City, where the hall’s headquarters was located.

His understanding of this strange world was quite limited, especially concerning the Extraordinary Side; he didn’t even know some of the basic common knowledge.

So, after leaving Canyun Mountain,

while heading toward Lancang County City, the location of the White Whale Martial Arts Hall headquarters, he also slowed his pace to learn about the Extraordinary Side of this unfamiliar world from different people.

As the old saying goes,

"Traveling ten thousand miles is better than reading ten thousand books."

After a few days,

all sorts of information came together.

Wu Dao had finally shed his ignorance. He could now connect the dots and had truly integrated into this world, gaining a basic understanding of the ins and outs of the Extraordinary Human Path.

As for the anomalies that concerned him most,

although information about them was still scarce in the Jianghu, since they existed, someone was bound to know about them.

The basic information,

Wu Dao had already grasped after investigating, inquiring, and cross-referencing from multiple sources.

Generally speaking,

the anomalies that had manifested in the world were divided into three categories—

Deceitful, Demons, and Fierce Monsters.

The Deceitful, whose name itself means "bizarre."

They are formed from the souls of living beings after death.

Due to the fear of death embedded in the very genes of life,

the Deceitful, as entities that represent death,

have been branded as ominous, dark, and terrifying through ages of word-of-mouth tales and strange chronicles.

They have gradually become synonymous with the bizarre.

Now, with the decline of the Dali’s Human Dao fortune,

these terrifying beings, which once existed only in ghost stories, have begun to appear in the world for real.

Because so few have manifested,

the Extraordinary Realm does not yet have a complete understanding of the Deceitful and can only classify them based on their level of danger.

Members of the Deceitful Species.

All have a Yin Lotus mark on their foreheads.

A White Lotus signifies a Wandering Soul. They are formless, shapeless, and without intelligence. They can possess and kill people day or night. A normal person will die instantly upon contact. Only Foundation Establishment cultivators who have reached Divine Power Great Success, their Qi and blood burning like a furnace, can resist them.

A Black Lotus signifies a Fierce Ghost.

While possessing the abilities of a Wandering Soul, they are also fully intelligent. Their minds can affect the physical world, allowing them to control mortals and even cultivators below the Divine Power realm. They can inflict Spiritual Contamination and create illusions, making them highly dangerous.

A one-layered Black Lotus flower

is equivalent in strength to the First Rebirth.

Two layers, the Second Rebirth.

Three layers, the Third Rebirth.

However,

this comparison is actually a bit of a stretch.

In fact,

with the exception of the Immortal Dao,

Martial Dao and Military Dao cultivators below the Innate realm who have not opened the Celestial Human Bridge give Black Lotus Fierce Ghosts a wide berth.

This is because relying on brute force alone

makes it very difficult to inflict any damage on them.

Although after the Second Rebirth, the Martial Dao has the Spirit Armor and the Military Dao has the Soldier’s Sharp Intent Covering Body, which can be used to attack the Deceitful Species,

the Deceitful don’t just stand there like wooden dummies and let you hit them.

They are formless and shapeless, can pass through walls, fly at low altitudes, and hide by possessing others...

It’s incredibly annoying.

Not to mention, these things are quite intelligent. If you provoke one and don’t eliminate it, it will cling to you like a maggot on a bone, waiting for a moment of weakness to strike.

Most importantly,

you can’t "eat" these things.

Those at the Innate realm or above might be able to capture one with a strong spiritual flame and refine it with the Power of Heaven and Earth to replenish their Divine Soul.

But even that is a troublesome affair.

After all, both the Martial Dao and Military Dao focus on cultivating the physical body. They don’t specialize in the Divine Soul like the Immortal Dao, which even involves igniting the Divine Soul Dao Fire.

It’s time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the benefits gained from refining one don’t make up for the energy expended. The losses outweigh the gains.

As for those below the Innate realm, even if they manage to catch one, they can only kill it, making it all for nothing.

Under these circumstances,

cultivators outside the Immortal Dao who encounter the Deceitful Species generally give them the cold shoulder, wanting nothing to do with this stinking, thorny pile of dog shit.

In the underworld,

there’s even slang that refers to the Deceitful as "hedgehogs."

As for them harming people...

Not all cultivators are great heroes who care for the common people. Fighting to the death for no benefit? They’d have to be crazy. Besides, it’s not like they’re the ones being harmed.

As for whether there are Deceitful more terrifying than the Black Lotus Fierce Ghosts,

Wu Dao had no way of knowing.

There were currently no related records or information circulating in the Jianghu.

This wasn’t just true for the Deceitful Species.

The same went for Demons.

The strength of Demons is divided by their years of cultivation.

One hundred to four hundred years:

This is the process where a Demon gains human nature and develops intelligence, corresponding to the four realms of Foundation Establishment.

At five hundred years, they can take human form, completing their roots of wisdom. Their intelligence and Spirituality become indistinguishable from a human’s.

Up to eight hundred years,

this corresponds to the three realms of Breaking the Cocoon.

But,

a Demon’s physical body, tempered by Spiritual Qi over long periods, possesses an exceptionally tenacious Life Force, and they will have developed some innate "Demon Techniques."

In terms of true strength,

they are much stronger than cultivators of the same realm.

Take the Flesh and Blood Tai Sui, for example.

Its transformation was far from complete,

yet it was still able to rout one Breaking the Cocoon master and four Divine Power Peak masters, one could even say it wiped them out completely.

Beyond eight hundred years,

corresponding to an Innate Master,

there are currently no records.

As for the last category, Fierce Monsters,

there are even fewer records in the Jianghu; they are the rarest of all.

Fierce Monsters are transformed from inanimate, malevolent objects and come in all shapes and sizes.

Stones, houses, tools, clothes, shoes...

Even a natural phenomenon can, by a stroke of luck, interact with the Heaven and Earth Energy and become a Fierce Monster Incarnation.

The only recorded incident of a Fierce Monster harming people comes from the neighboring Wanshan Prefecture.

It is said that

a rusty sword from an ancient tomb became a Fierce Monster and drank the blood of several hundred villagers in a single night.

However,

it was later subdued by a group of mysterious people.

There is speculation that

this group might have come from an organization founded by the Great Li Ancestor to monitor the dark side of the nation, an organization known as the Guardian Blade—

Jingzhe!

Besides information on the Extraordinary Side,

Wu Dao had also figured out what the ’Celestial Treasures’ he had previously noted were—the items that could break the shackles of the three great Innate organs and allow mortals to step onto the Path of Transcendence.

After coming into contact with many Jianghu people, he finally understood what they were.

Whenever he thought about them,

a strange feeling stirred in Wu Dao’s heart.

Strictly speaking,

Celestial Treasures were ’forged’ by the Extraordinaries of this world themselves!