“You don’t really need to pay attention to it. Just take a little time and disperse it.”

Jiang Qiulan had considerable experience with this — she was, after all, a practitioner who cultivated the Mixed Origin path while sitting in the middle of an entire prefecture’s accumulated faith.

The Yushan Prefecture Demon Suppression General had fallen, and no suitable replacement had been found to this day.

“Disperse it—”

Shen Yi’s eyes moved, and the earlier thought resurfaced.

“The Spirit-Transformation stage practitioners enshrined in the War Temple — are they limited to the imperial city’s range? Or does it extend across the entire Great Qian empire?”

He wanted to be clear on this. If it was the former, he’d just disperse the faith qi and move on.

Jiang Qiulan didn’t cultivate the divine spirit path, but she’d heard enough.

“As far as I know, the golden dharma forms don’t have that kind of limitation. The only time they need to return to the empire is if the form is shattered, and they need the accumulated faith to rebuild it.”

At that, something moved through Shen Yi’s eyes.

The idea was straightforward. Both paths — Mixed Origin and divine spirit — involved the core-nurturing stage. Since he was already going through one, why not do both?

At worst, the path infant and the divine spirit would be crowded.

For anyone else, a finite lifespan meant choosing one path and pressing upward as fast as possible. He was working with demon lifespan. As long as he killed enough, the problem solved itself.

The real difficulty was the divine spirit — it required divine intent.

But if he reached the Mixed Origin Grandmaster realm and then tried to cultivate a divine spirit, there would be nothing left over to give it.

What he could try instead was the Demon Origin. Reshape a demon soul into it, and have that serve as the divine spirit’s foundation.

If it failed, all he’d lose was faith qi he had no use for anyway.

And based on past experience — demons he’d personally killed could still help him derive techniques. The Demon Origin’s description about eternal servitude and no transcendence was probably not an exaggeration.

Of course, the Mixed Origin path remained the priority.

He also felt that the Spirit-Transformation stage practitioner in the War Temple showed some signs of declining faculties. And he had no particular interest in walking the world in the shape of a golden form.

“Any other questions?”

Jiang Qiulan waited without impatience. “If there’s anything you need help with, don’t stand on ceremony.”

“Mm—” He thought for a moment, then looked at her. “Could you lend me some demon cores?”

“Sure.” She nodded. A hand passed over the storage implement at her waist, and around a dozen Perfection-level cores came to rest quietly on the table.

“This is all I have on me. It should be enough for you to condense the path seed.”

She had seen him use demonic force directly. She’d been the one to recommend the Heaven-Devouring Art. She knew exactly what Shen Yi wanted them for.

As for whether he might be a demon in disguise—

Walking out of the War Temple alive was answer enough.

“I’ll return them when I come across more.”

Shen Yi didn’t stand on ceremony, and put the cores into the bell.

He had demon lifespan in excess right now and desperately needed to go have a conversation with some core-nurturing stage demons — the more preparation the better.

“No rush. I’m using the Mysterious Ice Seven-Kill Sword Intent to nurture the path infant now, condensing the Mixed Origin Boundless Sword Body. I don’t need these anymore.”

Jiang Qiulan rose slowly, then remembered something.

“Oh — General Chen asked me to tell you before he left. If you have time when you’re back, come find him in Linjiang Prefecture.”

“Sure.”

A small nod.

If I have time meant he didn’t.

Linjiang had a group of old flood dragons hiding in the Yangchun River. If they wouldn’t come out, he could be looking for years.

When Jiang Qiulan had gone—

He took a qi trace from the bell — borrowed from Jiang Chengyun, belonging to General You Longtao.

If he remembered correctly, passing through Tingyang Prefecture last time, he’d heard something about three core-nurturing demon lords in the area. That was considerably more convenient than going to find Old General Chen.

With that settled, Shen Yi stood and shut the door.

He poured himself a cup of warm water, then opened the panel. He looked at the lifespan stretching across ten thousand years, and felt a quiet satisfaction.

He’d brought it all to the capital and somehow come back with it intact. This was going to last a very long time.

【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 10,047 years】

He began feeding demon lifespan into the Heaven-Devouring Art.

The Heavenly Demon external pill still carried the fox demon’s cultivation inside. Start there.

【Year one — you drive the Heaven-Devouring inner core to consume everything inside the external pill. You run the Heaven-Devouring Art with engaged interest, and begin condensing the path seed. This process requires above all patience and care — which happen to be exactly what you have in abundance.】

The moment the notification appeared—

Shen Yi found the external pill emptied completely, its savage demonic force staining the inner core a dark red.

Demon lifespan flowing away quickly.

The notification was accurate — genuine patience, no complaint from beginning to end.

One hundred and twelve years drained. All the demonic force drawn together.

Condensate Perfection cultivation, it turned out, wasn’t sufficient to step directly into the core-nurturing stage — and not by a small margin.

At this rate, repeating the process roughly nine more times before the path seed fully took shape.

“But—”

He set the cup down, something slightly off occurring to him.

Hadn’t Jiang Qiulan said that General Chen planted his path seed at two hundred years and successfully entered core-nurturing, and that the divine spirit embryo had formed by eight hundred — and that was considered remarkably poor aptitude?

By contrast, the current projection said just laying the path seed would take over a thousand years.

At this pace, if he relied only on himself, he’d run out of lifespan before reaching core-nurturing.

“…”

Probably partly because the Heaven-Devouring Art was harder than most. And General Chen took the divine spirit shortcut — comparing that to the Mixed Origin path made no sense.

He took out another Perfection-level demon core. With resources to spare, he spent one year of demon lifespan to absorb it — hoping something useful might emerge.

The only result was the external pill eating well. Nothing else.

The external pill’s only real function was absorbing demonic force and feeding it to the Heaven-Devouring inner core.

Demon lifespan kept dropping.

A crimson point of light gradually appeared within the Heaven-Devouring inner core.

Condensing the path seed was difficult — but at least it was a process with visible progress. And it produced almost no negative emotion.

Core after core went in.

【Year 873 — you swallow the golden-furred rat demon’s core, absorb the dregs. You acquire the innate ability: Spiritual Treasure Sense.】

【Spiritual Treasure Sense: You possess an acuity toward rare heavenly materials and earthly treasures beyond what others can achieve, always able to detect precious things concealed beneath ordinary appearances.】

Another innate ability without a cultivation tier prefix.

Better than nothing.

He brought his attention back to the Heaven-Devouring inner core.

The crimson point was growing more solid, and had begun sending web-like tendrils outward in every direction.

Then the ninth core went in.

【Year 1,370 — you successfully plant the Demonic Ferocity Path Seed. You enter the core-nurturing stage.】

【Heaven-Devouring Core-Consuming Art: Novice.】

【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 8,677 years.】

In that instant — a surge of robust vitality erupted from the inner core.

The crimson point began to pulse. Like a heartbeat.

At the same moment, the savage, ferocious demonic force churning within the inner core showed signs of overflowing.

Shen Yi activated the Solar-Fusion Furnace without hesitation and brought the full suppressive force crashing down.

In an instant — the crimson point was contained, without any capacity to resist.

Shen Yi opened his eyes slowly.

The qi around him was violent and overwhelming.

Even running the Turtle-Breath Method at full capacity, he could only keep it within the room — not spreading out any further.

This was a kind of strength he had never felt before.

Against this demonic force — even the external pill at full capacity, which had once seemed so formidable, now felt like something you’d laugh at.

(End of Chapter)