Towering mountain ranges ringed the horizon, green grass swaying in a gentle breeze.

Having been thoroughly pestered by Jiang Yuanhua, Shen Yi simply mounted his cloud and left the city behind, making his way to some uninhabited stretch of wild hill country in Qingzhou.

The grass wasn't as soft as bedding, but it had its own particular charm.

He allowed himself, briefly, to savor the hard-won quiet.

Shen Yi opened the panel, his gaze sweeping one by one across the entries listed in the techniques column.

Setting aside demon techniques, the rarest among them were, without question, the Unfettered Wind-Riding Art, the Twin-Harmony Dragon-Tiger True Intent, and the Heaven-Devouring Core-Consuming Art.

These were already the most top-tier techniques available anywhere in Qingzhou.

But for him, as he stood now, their usefulness had dwindled down to next to nothing.

It was only after truly breaking through to the Mixed Origin realm that Shen Yi finally understood what Jiang Qiulan had meant, back then, when she'd said there was nothing within the immortal sects that he actually wanted.

The reason wasn't hard to guess, really.

Take himself, for instance — he had forged his path infant out of demon power, while Jiang Qiulan had achieved Mixed Origin through the Mysterious Ice Seven-Kill Sword Intent.

A path suited to one person was not necessarily suited to another.

A divine spirit was different — every one of them was condensed from accumulated faith, and so there was a common thread to be traced and learned from there.

"Exceptional comprehension."

Shen Yi looked over his more than twenty thousand years of banked demon lifespan, and a sudden uncertainty crept into his chest.

Forget it. What was the point in overthinking it? He'd take it one step at a time.

At the very least, for now, there was still a direction left to push toward.

With that thought, Shen Yi gritted his teeth, and ten thousand years of banked demon lifespan vanished in an instant.

【Demon Origin: Capable of reshaping a demon soul into one bound to serve at your side — eternally enslaved, never to…