Way of the Devil

They walked down the sloped tunnel. At first, it was only slanted slightly, but soon sloped down to almost seventy degrees.

After a good fifteen minutes and a turn, they finally saw a light at the end. They walked toward the light for another ten breaths before Zhang Songhui stopped.

“Please stop for a moment.” He raised his hand. “We’re about to see the divine beast that guards the entrance. Don’t be frightened.

“Giggle.”

The girl in the red dress laughed. Zhang Songhui seemed like he was exaggerating.

But Zhang Songhui didn’t take notice of her behavior and ignored it. He raised his hand and drew some simple symbols in the air in front of him.

“Boom…!”

With a faint rumble, a black, a half-circular hole slowly appeared in front of them. It was over ten meters in diameter.

A dot of gold burst from the center. It was a golden flame the size of a fist.

The golden flame grew and grew, becoming wider and longer. Suddenly, it exploded, forming a golden rectangular door.

Numerous fragments of jewels and gems were embedded into the door. Colorful gems formed a huge face in the door that looked at the people silently.

“Hiss…”

From the top of the door, a huge serpent with the face of a human slowly slid down in the golden flames. The face was that of a beautiful girl with white, golden hair. Her irises were golden, and she looked at Zhang Songhui and the rest silently.

“Please enter,” the human-faced serpent spoke slowly. Her voice was mixed with the sound of metals clashing, and had a piercing quality to it.

“Thank you, Madam.” Zhang Songhui lowered his head in respect. All the others quickly paid their respects too, including the guy and girl who were boasting about their money. From their expressions, they knew who this person was.

Lu Sheng gave the huge serpent an extra glance in curiosity before lowering his head.

“Buzz…”

The huge door slowly opened, revealing a golden vortex.

“Imagine yourself walking in,” Zhang Songhui whispered.

They all understood. Taking a step forward, they all turned into golden beams of light and shot into the vortex.

***

When he opened his eyes again, Lu Sheng found himself standing in a small room. The walls were covered with pale blue wallpaper.

Beside him were the others that had been with him.

Zhang Songhui stood in the front, looking at them.

“Now that you’ve come to your senses, please come out. Otherwise, you will block the other people trying to come through.” He smiled.

The few people that already made it in hurriedly walked out of the room.

Lu Sheng glanced back. The room they had come through was like a dressing room, with over ten of them standing in a row. All these tiny rooms were located in a larger golden-white hall. There was an arched gate on one side, and the other three sides were filled with these little rooms.

They only walked out of one. People walked in and out of the other ones.

“I’ll take you guys around. There is a map of this area in the crystal in the center, so you can go see where you want to go. Additionally—”

Zhang Songhui didn’t finish before he was interrupted by the red dress girl. “That’s enough. Someone’s here to pick me up, so I’ll take my leave.” As she said so, she left the hall.

All the other people also excused themselves by saying someone was here to pick them up.

Soon, there were only Lu Sheng and Zhang Songhui left.

Zhang Songhui shrugged and looked toward Lu Sheng.

“Don’t look at me. No one’s here to pick me up.” Lu Sheng smiled.

“That’s okay. I’ve been picking up people for a long time now, and almost nobody waited for me to finish.” Zhang Songhui also smiled.

“You’ve just arrived, so you’re exempted from paying living expenses for a month. I’ll take you to the living quarters. After a month, you’ll have to start paying rent. One word of advice: here in the Inner Quarters, money is the most important thing. Everything else comes second.”

“I understand…” Lu Sheng nodded. “How many people can the Inner Quarters house?”

“I’m not sure. No one has ever counted. But I think there are at least a few thousand,” Zhang Gaohui said thoughtfully. “It’s because there are people getting kicked out constantly, while others come in. No one knows the exact number.”

“Do all the Thousand Sun Sect branches located in prefectures require so much money?” Lu Sheng couldn’t resist asking.

“The others are better. They also ask for money, but the Moling Prefecture is especially bad. Most of the others are much better,” Zhang Songhui said resignedly. “Please don’t blame them. You should know since you entered the Thousand Sun Sect that the founder was born a merchant. So, this situation is completely to be expected.”

“Okay…” Lu Sheng was speechless.

“Let’s go, I’ll take you to the registration and get you your living arrangements.”

Zhang Songhui led Lu Sheng out of the hall.

Outside was a clean, white space, almost like the inside of an enormous church. Above them was a white arch with a gold, glowing ball in the center, giving off a soft and warm light.

Below were all sorts of different styles of white buildings with the occasional golden house.

The two walked out of the hall and into a square. There was a hexagon-shaped crystal in the center of it.

The crystal was more than ten meters wide and was lying flat on the ground. The inside of it was faintly golden, and spells and symbols flashed across the corners.

Apart from a few people gathered around the crystal, there was no sign of life anywhere around them. Occasionally a talisman might fly across the sky, or a few shadowy figures flash through the square and disappear among the buildings, but that was it.

Zhang Songhui stood in front of the crystal. He wrote on one of the corners, quickly inputting all of Lu Sheng’s information.

“Okay. this will be your address, don’t lose it.” He handed a small crystal ball to Lu Sheng. “In the Inner Quarters, this is your pass. Don’t lose it.”

“Okay.” Lu Sheng nodded.

“I’ll see you again sometime, then. I’ll be leaving first.” Before Lu Sheng could say anything else, Zhang Songhui turned around and left swiftly.

Lu Sheng watched him leave. He then held up the crystal ball to try to figure out how it worked.

He inserted True Qi into it and it slowly lit up. There was a gold thread suspended inside, like a worm, and it pointed toward his front left.

He knew the basics of what this was now.

Holding the crystal ball, he crossed the square and wandered on the empty streets for a bit.

This was pretty similar to the Outer Quarters. No one was outside, and if they were, they were all walking hastily or had expressions full of stress and worry.

The layout of the area was similar to the one above ground too. Apart from color differences between the buildings and that golden ball above their heads, everything was the same as it would be in daytime above the ground. Using his crystal ball, Lu Sheng soon found the house he was allocated.

It was an empty four-cornered living quarter. His room was the 67th house. There was no one to welcome him or explain anything. He had to figure out everything on his own.

As soon as he walked into the garden, Lu Sheng saw a large notice board facing the gate.

There were all sorts of black leaves on it. Each leaf was as long as a person’s forearm and contained information about different kinds of notices.

Which elder was teaching, what day the Secret Arts Library would put new secret arts on display, what new creatures the Spirit Training Arena has captured, etc., etc.

Lu Sheng reached out and pulled a leaf down to see its texture. But no matter how much he bent it, it didn’t break.

“Interesting.” He smiled. He looked up at the golden ball.

With his senses, he could tell that the ball was not there to act as a light, but instead was a huge true essence ball.

White threads of true essence shot up from below and entered into the ball. It then returned small amounts of golden true essence which scattered and fell down.

“What a powerful matrix…” Lu Sheng breathed deeply. He could sense that the true essence in the air was very pure. Although it wasn’t as dense as it was in the Secret Area, it was purer and without any impurities. This way, it was faster to absorb.

He also noticed that the golden true essence the ball gave off only landed on living quarters and nowhere else.

“This is why living costs money here,” he said in a moment of realization.

Entering the garden, Lu Sheng found his own room through the direction the crystal ball gave him. There were no keys. He only had to touch the door using the crystal ball for it to open.

Lu Sheng didn’t waste any time. He went in, locked the door, shut the curtains, and inspected every corner. After making sure everything was safe, he quickly sat down on his bed, crossed his legs, and started chanting his master’s name silently to enter the Secret Area.

***

“Hiss…”

Lu Sheng opened his eyes and looked around. He was in Master Su Ningfei’s underground cave again.

Su Ningfei wasn’t there, but there was a black stone table that was shaped like an altar. A few things were on it.

Lu Sheng walked over. It was a yellow, stone board with a few messy knife cuts on it.

There was a small line carved next to the stone slate: “Understand this slate to become a Divine Lord.”

Lu Sheng’s curiosity was immediately hooked. He knew this was Su Ningfei’s pointer in breaking through to Devil Lord.

“What I’m missing right now is mental energy, the difference in mind and soul. Master knows this, yet she still left this stone slate for me. That means the stuff on this can improve my soul.” Understanding his master’s intentions, he picked up the irregular slate and examined it carefully.

But there was nothing on the slate at all, not even a hint. Maybe Master Su Ningfei was waiting for him to finish his mission first before explaining.

Lu Sheng set the stone slate down and looked around. Green emeralds were embedded into the wall for lighting purposes, and a huge crystal was placed in the ceiling so that the golden sunlight could shine through with beams of light.

After searching around for a bit, he made sure there were no new exits or hints. Defeated, he returned back to the table and sat down to ponder on the stone slate.

“Devil Lord, Divine Lord. In essence, those are really similar to Divine Weapons and Devil Blades. It’s an improvement in the quality of my life and soul. To reach that realm, I need a higher-level soul since my body is already strong enough. If I can just understand this stone slate…”

Staring at the stone slate, he started examining the knife slashes. But after a long time, he still couldn’t figure anything out. These knife marks were the same as any other. For a bit, he even suspected Su Ningfei found a random piece of stone to trick him.

“Deep blue.” He decided to ask his cheating device for help.