Chapter 14: Heaven Devouring Demonic Technique
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
“What do we do next? Do we keep watching?” Seeing Zhou Yi’s uncertain expression, Mr. Bai scratched his ears and spoke.
“When that fellow finds the secret manual of the Heavenly King, won’t it be easy for us to join forces to follow him and launch a sneak attack? Why don’t you poison him in advance and weaken him?”
Becoming a Connate Grandmaster was the ultimate dream of the martial arts world. Mr. Bai, who had always been indifferent to everything, was no exception.
The history of Heavenly King Cang had long spread in the martial world. Before the age of thirty, he was unknown. After obtaining a divine technique, he reached the Connate realm in ten years. He became a Martial Grandmaster and joined the Alliance Leader of Jiangnan. His power was unparalleled for a time. Other beauties such as gold and silver were just supplementary items.
“Are you stupid?” Zhou Yi pointed at his clothes. “I’m a prison guard. There’s no need to follow him.”
“True!”
Mr. Bai suddenly understood. He looked at Zhou Yi, who was walking towards cell A1. He wanted to ask what the name of the divine technique was, but he was afraid of losing one of his few friends.
…
Cell A-1. It was empty. Every corner was clean.
After killing the prison attackers that night, the Uniformed Guard investigated this cell thoroughly. They even scraped off three layers from the wall.
“Is he trying his luck or does he know something that even the Uniformed Guard cannot find?”
Zhou Yi had seen the miserable appearance of Heavenly King Cang. Most of his bones were broken, and he even needed to be fed, so he could not leave the fine steel torture rack.
Every part of the torture rack was probed with inner Qi. Even the shackles and chains were made of solid steel. There was no lack of inner Qi experts among the Uniformed Guards. They must have also probed the cell before. The Heavenly King could not hide his inheritance so simply.
“It must be something that outsiders can’t search…”
Zhou Yi suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He placed his palm on the torture rack and allowed his inner Qi entered it in the same way as the voice transmission secret technique.
“The Heaven Devouring Demon Technique!”
The voice of the Heavenly King suddenly sounded in his ears, followed by a mnemonic chant of more than 3,000 words. It taught him how to devour the inner Qi of others and fuse them for his own use.
There was a method to break through to the Connate realm. It was extremely simple and crude, and there was nothing mysterious about it.
Internal Qi for 500 years. Once circulated, it could forcefully mobilize the heaven and earth essence energy and allow him to advance to the Connate realm!
At the end, Heavenly King Cang exhorted, “The mutated inner qi refined by the Heaven Devouring Demon Technique is very strange. It reduces one’s lifespan by 50%. Every generation has top experts. They can continue to pass down the legacy and have endless wealth. The Cang family disciples must not be greedy for the Connate realm…”
“No wonder the Heavenly King is only in his fifties and is a Connate Grandmaster. But he looks so old!”
Zhou Yi listened to the complete cultivation technique and used the voice transmission secret technique again. As expected, the voice of the Heavenly King Cang sounded again. Upon closer inspection, the voices in the background seems softer.
“This guy must be the descendant of Heavenly King Cang. If he can’t find the demonic technique, something will definitely happen.”
Zhou Yi pondered for a moment. It was better to be safe than sorry. He had risked his life to obtain the clan’s inheritance, so he might as well take advantage of the situation and send him away.
Peace makes money!
When he returned to Prison A-6, he saw Mr. Bai squatting in the corner and sighing.
“Which lady are you thinking of now?”
Zhou Yi listened to him speak, and most of what heard at this time had to do with Mr. Bai flaunting his beauty in the martial arts world. Something about being sixth in the martial arts world’s rouge ranking, something about an extraordinary female sword immortal, and a daughter of the Jiangnan aristocratic family…
After hearing so much, he understood that Mr. Bai’s imprisonment was not torture, but more like avoiding a debt of love!
“I’m missing my friends from the past.”
Mr. Bai raised his hand, his eyes filled with love as he sang a strange song he had heard from Zhou Yi. “Friends, friends…”
Zhou Yi interrupted Mr. Bai and said, “Stop! Do you want to know the cultivation technique of Heavenly King Cang?”
“You’ll tell me?”
Mr. Bai’s figure flashed, leaving several afterimages in the air, and instantly landed in front of the prison door.
Zhou Yi said, “This cultivation technique is called the Heaven Devouring Demon Technique. It can devour and refine the inner Qi of others. The specific refinement method…”
“Shh! It’s indeed a demonic technique. No wonder the Heavenly King could become a grandmaster in ten years!” Mr. Bai took a deep breath and waved his hand. “It’s good that you know the name. You can use it to brag to others in the future. Don’t tell me the content of the cultivation technique, lest you can’t help but practice it.”
“It’s about bragging to a woman, isn’t it?”
Zhou Yi’s gaze was disdainful, but he could not help but feel envious. The Dao Fruit of Eternal Life did not have a beautifying effect, and its appearance was still ordinary.
“This cultivation technique also has flaws. After absorbing energy for five years, one’s lifespan will be shortened by a year. Before one becomes old, they will decline first. Even Heavenly King Cang found this difficult to reverse from the grandmaster realm.”
“All the more reason not to practice! Being strong is one thing, but being handsome is another!” Mr. Bai pointed at his own face. “We don’t rely on fighting in the martial arts world. Just with this face, I’ve survived many dangers. That day in the royal palace, hundreds of swords were pointed at us. In the end, the princess personally helped us out…”
…
Zhou Yi could not stand this fellow’s smugness and ran away with the bucket.
…
In the blink of an eye, another month passed.
After obtaining the Heaven Devouring Demon Technique, Zhou Yi was not in a hurry to cultivate it. He was still secretly observing that person’s movements.
Early that morning.
Zhou Yi came to the Sky Prison for the roll call. He found that the Imperial Guard was on duty outside and the Uniformed Guard was searching inside.
“Zhou Yi, someone escaped from prison last night. Apparently, one of them killed another prisoner and disguised himself.”
Feng Qiao continued in a low voice, “Commandant Lu received money from Superintendent Xiao of the Ministry of Justice and interrogated the criminal in the middle of the night. He wanted to cripple him, but who would have thought that he was a martial arts expert!”
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Commandant Lu had his neck broken on the spot. The prisoner fought his way out of the cell and fled.
“Wow…” Zhou Yi did not know what to say for a moment. From the perspective of his colleagues, he should sympathize with them. However, it did not seem right to wantonly torture the prisoners.
An unspoken rule was just an unspoken rule. Those who really knew right from wrong right could only say that this person’s heart was evil!
“When you go back to pay your respects, send some payment.”
Zhou Yi had not been interrogated when he entered the cell. The Uniformed Guard did not care about the food that was sent to the prisoners, let alone the food that had been sent to them for fifteen or sixteen years.
In the end, the matter was left unsettled. The scoundrel used a disguise technique and no one knew his original appearance and age. Naturally, an arrest warrant would be useless.
It had always been a huge problem for the strong in the martial world to violate the rules.
The capital and the surrounding territories were already considered stable. There were many martial arts experts entrenched in the capital. The strong ones, like Heavenly King Cang, had wreaked havoc in the south for more than ten years. The weak ones ran rampant in the villages and towns, bullying and dominating the cities and villages.
Cultivation of martial arts required a lot of money. Ordinary people could not even get started on studying it, so they were oppressed and did not even have the right to be angry.
Although the difference in strength between martial artists and commoners was not as great as the difference between immortals and mortals, it was not something that three to five people could resist!
“The supernatural world makes class structures even more solid. People can only see the glory above and won’t pay attention to the misery at the bottom.”
Zhou Yi was not a saint who cared about the world. He only sighed with emotion. Then, he went to cell A-1 and used the secret technique to investigate the torture rack. As expected, the voice of the Heavenly King had completely disappeared.
“It’s time for peace and quiet in this prison again.”
Over the past few days, Zhou Yi had been delivering food and had secretly investigated the prisoners. He had found out which ones had dense inner qi, which ones would go to the execution ground, and which ones did not have a master outside.
When anyone else obtained the Heaven Devouring Demon Technique, they cultivated their inner qi in a low-key manner and aggressively devoured the experts of the martial arts world. The hunter advanced slowly while the prey was hunted down.
Regardless of whether one was cautious or reckless, according to the laws of the martial arts world, those who cultivated demonic techniques would definitely not have a good ending. However, Zhou Yi’s situation was different. There were many martial arts experts in Sky Prison. What he needed to do was to choose a good target to devour!
After careful selection, a first-rate expert named Yu Sheng was chosen.
Yu Sheng could be considered a legend of the martial arts world who started from scratch. When he was young, he was brave and fierce. When he became an adult, he robbed houses. The money he obtained was all used for martial arts cultivation.
Because of his superior talent, he quickly became famous in the martial arts world. People called him the Blood Saber.
How could one not wet their shoes when walking by the river? In the end, he fell into the trap of the Uniformed Guard and was thrown into Sky Prison. He was scheduled to be beheaded after autumn.
“You’ll die sooner or later. Instead of going to the execution site, why don’t you exchange your inner Qi for a nice meal and some wine and die right here instead? That makes sense, right?”
Zhou Yi placed his palm on the prisoner’s dantian1.His inner Qi flowed into Zhou Yi’s body through his meridians.
The prisoner was in extreme pain. His entire body twitched, but he could not make a sound until his dantian shattered and his meridians were severed.
“About seven or eight years of inner Qi. Some of it has been lost in the process, but there are many more experts in Sky Prison!”
Zhou Yi felt that the inner Qi in his dantian had thickened by more than 50%. No wonder so many people liked to cultivate demonic techniques. The feeling of getting something for nothing was really nice!
“Two years off my life expectancy…”
Zhou Yi sensed carefully and discovered that his internal organs had changed slightly. It could be said that he had matured and aged.
The Dao Fruit of Eternal Life had not moved for more than ten years. After trembling slightly for a moment, it turned his aged internal organs back to their original state.
“So this is the correct way to use the Dao Fruit of Eternal Life. Cultivating a demonic technique that will shorten one’s lifespan but allow one to advance at lightning speed!” Zhou Yi muttered to himself. Ignoring the half-dead prisoner curled up in the corner, he slowly walked to the next cell.
Sky Prison prisoners rarely live to the day of execution. After death, they would be examined but no one would investigate the cause of death. This kind of thing was not easy to investigate, and in fact was not allowed to be investigated, which might be a policy related to the current emperor.
Devouring inner Qi was only the first step of the demonic technique. After that, it still needed some time to refine and fuse.
Zhou Yi was not in a hurry. No matter how slow it was to fuse inner Qi, it was more than a hundred times faster than cultivating the Origin Returning Mantra.
There was another characteristic of the Heaven Devouring Demonic Technique that Zhou Yi was very satisfied with. Before reaching the Connate realm, there was basically no bottleneck. He only needed to find a sufficient source of inner Qi and spend time and effort to refine and fuse it.
Five hundred years of internal Qi, formed naturally!
The Origin Returning Mantra and Five Tigers Mighty Fist that he had previously cultivated were both orthodox cultivation techniques. Putting aside the speed of his advancement, the various sizes of the bottleneck gave Zhou Yi a headache.
For example, whether refining his external muscles and bones or his internal organs, Zhou Yi pondered and studied alone for a full five years before barely mastering it.
In martial arts cultivation, technique, talent, resources, and guidance from a master were indispensable. After all, a typical person’s lifespan was limited. They could not rely on time to break through the bottleneck.
“Five hundred years of inner Qi. That’s about eighty or ninety people…” Zhou Yi looked at the prisoners in section A like fat pigs waiting to be slaughtered. “From now on, treat them better. They can’t drink swill anymore. If their bodies are weak and their inner Qi dissipates, that would be my loss!”
After that, things changed.
The prisoners of section A drank thick porridge with minced meat in it. They were naturally grateful to Zhou Yi.
…
It was the autumn of the seventh year of Hongchang.
Zhou Yi entered the kitchen to get the food bucket. Seeing that Chef Liu had prepared the food box, he instructed him to send it to cell C-9.
“Whose young master came in again?”
Zhou Yi was already used to this. In the past ten years, he had seen many good-for-nothings. Coming to the Sky Prison was like a vacation for them. Some people were even proud of this.
Which young master in the Divine Capital had not been to cell C-9 and enjoyed special treatment there? Any that hadn’t could not be considered top-notch nobles.
Chef Liu said in a low voice, “I heard that he’s distantly related to the Li family. We didn’t dare to ask what exactly he did!”
The number of people surnamed Li in the Divine Capital was unknown, and there was no lack of rich people among them. However, ever since Emperor Hongchang ascended the throne, the only ones in the capital who were called “the Li family” were those who occupied the Grand General’s residence.
The Li Wu clansmen!
