【Condensate Perfection Peacock Demon slain — Total Lifespan: 6,100 years. Remaining: 1,726 years. Absorbed.】
【Full-core Peacock Demon slain — Total Lifespan: 5,200 years. Remaining: 807 years. Absorbed.】
【Rough-core Peacock Demon slain — Total Lifespan: 4,200 years. Remaining: 2,820 years. Absorbed.】
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 5,837 years】
The others were still occupied in the valley.
Shen Yi found a quiet spot, sat down cross-legged, opened the panel, and looked through the earlier notifications.
These peacock demons had been something unusual. Their lifespans were noticeably longer than typical demons at the same cultivation level.
He opened the thin booklet Yan Xingkong had given him and turned to the last page.
Beyond demon lifespan and cores, something had appeared in the techniques column.
【Condensate Realm · Unfettered Wind-Riding Art: Untrained】
【Condensate Realm · Twin-Harmony True Intent: Untrained】
The first was the art that had let Yan Xingkong range freely across all of Qingzhou. The second had come from a casual glance at the technique before pocketing it.
The two old priests had conducted themselves well. No hesitation when it mattered. Demons like these tended to carry valuables beyond their cores — when the time came, offering some portion as payment wouldn’t be taking something for nothing.
Probably a habit from all the body-refinement cultivation.
Looking at dense, obscure martial techniques now, Shen Yi found himself instinctively recalling how it had felt deriving the Four Harmonies True Astral Force and the Meridian-Severing Dragon Capture.
He shook his head reflexively. The Immortal-Demon Nine Transformations first. Expensive, but the returns were completely reliable.
He placed the Condensate Perfection peacock core in his mouth and fed the demon lifespan in.
【Year one — you activate the death-essence and begin pressing it against the toad lord’s consciousness—】
He’d done this many times. No surprises to be found, just a question of how many years it would cost.
Shen Yi stopped watching the notifications and turned his attention inward instead.
He could feel it clearly — another consciousness stirring somewhere in the flesh, noticing something was wrong, beginning to flee in a panic.
Until the death-essence surrounded it completely.
The consciousness faded slowly as the demon lifespan dropped.
【Year two hundred and three — the toad lord’s consciousness is extinguished. You begin the fourth transformation.】
The core dissolved, and new force began condensing through the body.
The lifespan was draining at a frightening rate.
Seven hundred years. Fourteen hundred. Two thousand.
Then a high, clear bird-cry rang through his mind, and the force was finally bound within the body.
【Year two thousand four hundred and thirty — another fierce demon has taken shape within you. More savage than anything before.】
You become the Southern Visitor Immortal. Sacred bird descended from the jade terrace. The azure feather sunders mountains and rivers. The crimson feather restores flesh from bone. Turn the mind toward killing, and all living things tremble. Turn the mind toward mercy, and everything returns to spring.
The surge this time wasn’t as overwhelming as before. But it gave him a clear, felt sense of having crossed a threshold.
Only the fourth transformation — still two away from Major Mastery.
But it had finally taken his physical body completely past the full-core stage. He was now genuinely comparable to Condensate Perfection.
“…”
Shen Yi’s eyes closed partway, both hands resting on his knees.
Cyan light moved across the right palm. Crimson light glowed in the left.
Two completely opposite forces circling the body, responding exactly as he intended. He directed the crimson — the ache in both arms from drawing the bow vanished immediately, and the fatigue of pushing hard for days cleared with it.
He exhaled quietly.
The mysteries of demon abilities — still finding new things to appreciate.
The sharp cyan light danced at his fingertips, as if a single casual sweep would cleanly separate anything in front of him.
As for the two thousand and some years of lifespan — it looked like a lot, and in practice was somewhat less than he’d estimated. Based on comparing the mountain lord’s and toad lord’s cores, he’d expected it might take a few hundred more.
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 3,407 years】
He opened his eyes, drew the two light-forms back, and looked at the panel.
His gaze settled on the Unfettered Wind-Riding Art.
A new Heaven-Piercing Solar-Splitting Bow in hand — if this strange movement art could be added on top, he’d have nothing to fear anywhere in Qingzhou short of the dozen-odd core-nurturing demon lords.
He fed the demon lifespan in again.
【Year one — you open the Unfettered Wind-Riding Art and read the obscure text within. You nod thoughtfully. A flash of clear stupidity crosses your eyes.】
Shen Yi bit down.
There it is. Again.
That unmistakable familiar feeling, so long absent.
【Year three — you have the text memorized front to back. Your mind remains completely blank. You’ve trained many movement arts before, but what’s written here is clearly unlike anything you’ve encountered.】
【Year twenty-two — you stand up. Your legs don’t move. You simply close your eyes, feel the wind passing over your body, and when you open them again you’ve appeared three zhang away. Something like shock crosses your eyes. This isn’t a movement art at all — it’s something closer to translocation. But when you try again, you can’t find the feeling from before.】
【Year forty-seven — the urgency that built over years of attempts finally settles. You turn to go back, take one step, and appear ten zhang away.】
【Unfettered Wind-Riding Art: Minor Mastery】
The barely-perceptible wind against his ears suddenly became vivid.
As if the whole body had dissolved into the surrounding environment. Lighter. The sense that a single shift of intent could let him rise on the wind.
Even the jade liquid in the qi sea began to circulate on its own.
The panel’s next notification pulled him out of it before the feeling could take hold completely.
The demon lifespan was still draining.
Progress continued at its steady, unhurried pace.
By now Shen Yi understood most techniques well enough — the operation of qi and the mechanics of movement had become second nature across nearly everything he’d trained.
But this Condensate Realm movement art had clearly crossed into different territory.
It resembled what the storybooks described when immortals rode clouds and mist. Perhaps that was overstating it, but becoming the wind rather than moving through it — this was something that couldn’t honestly be called a movement art anymore.
No wonder Yan Xingkong with only one working leg had still moved that fast.
The reason he’d been unable to run wasn’t the broken legs. It was almost certainly the final palm that had sealed the qi sea.
Then — the wind in his ears went completely silent.
Shen Yi looked up.
The final notification moved across the panel.
【Year seven hundred and thirty-two — you vanish from where you stand and reappear. Your feet haven’t moved an inch. But you know with certainty that if you chose, you could appear a hundred zhang away in an instant. You are no longer commanding the wind. You are the unfettered wind itself.】
【Unfettered Wind-Riding Art: Perfection】
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 2,675 years】
(End of Chapter)