Way of the Devil

Impressively, Tu Style Healing Art was displayed on the bottom-most frame.

The peculiar thing was that this Tu Style Healing Art frame contained two smaller frames, which were stacked on top of each other.

The top frame was Spirit Prompt.

The bottom frame was transplanting art.

These were the two key techniques of the Tu Style Healing Art.

Lu Sheng looked toward the Spirit Prompt frame above.

‘Spirit Prompt. First stage, black spirit-prompting thread. (Special traits. Blood Formation, level one. Suture, level one. Growth Promotion, level one.)’

‘This really is a cultivation method that has no offensive abilities at all…’ Lu Sheng shook his head slightly. He glanced at his remaining Mental Energy.

He gave it some thought. Then, he slowly moved his finger toward the modify button under the interface.

‘Let’s try raising it by one level.’

After pushing the button with familiar movements, Lu Sheng focused his gaze on the Spirit Prompt frame.

“Hiss…”

The frame blurred and sharpened in an instant.

‘Spirit Prompt. Second stage. (Special traits. Blood Formation, level two. Suture, level two. Growth Promotion, level two.)’

‘I’ve consumed one unit of Mental Energy. This means that this fundamental skill formula isn’t a low-tiered one… I don’t feel any burden on my body, which means that my precision far surpasses the requirements of this stage…’ Lu Sheng was silent for a while. He looked toward the frame again.

‘Let’s raise it to the highest level, level five.’ With a thought, his Mental Energy started flowing rapidly.

The frame blurred and sharpened several times. It started flickering.

A few moments later.

Lu Sheng aimed his hand toward a patch of grass to his side.

“Hiss…”

A black beetle with injured feet was instantly immobilized by a transparent thread.

Its injured feet quickly healed, and it was restored to perfect health in no time. It buzzed its wings and started flying around Lu Sheng.

“Crack… Crack…”

It barely made a circle when the beetle’s wound did not stop growing. Black spikes grew from out of its feet.

Its body swiftly swelled up, and the wings on its back grew longer. Countless fine yellow lumps of flesh grew on its faint yellowish abdomen.

The beetle grew in size and width until it was the size of a soccer ball. The bug seemed to have mutated into a completely different species. It was now a vile-looking ball of flesh.

“Bam!”

It exploded. Bloody liquid sprayed on the ground.

“Hm… That’s overkill… But this effect… exceeded my expectations.”

Lu Sheng muttered to himself for a while. Then, he looked at his healing art spirit-prompting threads that were already at the highest level.

‘There’s no rush. I should wait until I’ve learned all there is to learn before deriving and making an overall improvement.’

He unleashed some Devil Qi to clean up the remains of the bug and the mess it made. Then, he turned around and left the forest.

‘This effect can certainly be incorporated into my martial path. Many defensive skill formulas won’t defend against vigor whose nature is completely devoid of harm. I can invade my target’s body with harmless vigor, and then promote such a distorting and peculiar effect…’

It could not be denied that this was a good train of thought.

Lu Sheng was thinking about how he was supposed to incorporate this into his own martial path. He returned to Tu Jin’s courtyard and resumed his role as an assistant.

Lately, there has been an outbreak of a disease known as Kashan. Many patients had turned up at their doorstep, but this disease spread too quickly, and the chances of recovery were low a well. As a result, the courtyard was jam-packed with people.

Lu Sheng busied himself with tending to the patients. Tu Jin had no time to give them directions. They were on their own.

Fundamentally, the Tu Style Healing Art’s real core was the transplanting art. The healing art was created as an auxiliary ability for the transplanting art.

After observing several organ transplant surgeries, Lu Sheng was starting to have an idea about this healing art.

He started his own organ transplant experiments in secret as well. The forests around him were large enough. He dug a cave underground and started trapping various animals from the area to use in his small-scale experiments.

At the same time, he was waiting for Tu Jin to finally deal with all his patients and teach him about the transplanting.

…

Spring passed and summer came. Another two months went by in the blink of an eye.

Libra City, Fourth Ward. The Scarlet Cloud Sect.

Scarlet cloud layers slowly covered the skies above the entire sect. A black mountain ram’s head hovered in the center of the clouds.

Among the huge cluster of dark gray buildings underneath, Zhao Decheng lowered his head slowly. He looked toward the water clock on the nearby wall.

This was a special timepiece which told the time by relying on the steady flow of water.

The flow of the water could be maintained at a constant speed here thanks to the existence of the runic formations.

“Where is she?” He furrowed his brows.

“I’m coming.” Chenchen appeared. Her bulging tummy was swaying with her movements as she jogged up to him.

“This letter is from Dad. It’s for you.” She handed an unopened envelope to Zhao Decheng.

“What did master tell you? Is he still mad at us for running away?” Zhao Decheng hastily asked what was on his mind.

“He’s mad, but that’s because we’re the people the most precious to him.” Chenchen smacked her own fat buttocks.

“What else can he say? I’m sure he’ll mention that the rye is ripe and they’re hiring help to bring it in, or maybe the Qianyu flowers we’ve planted are budding again, or maybe art master Li’s painted snake produced more dead eggs…”

Zhao Decheng sighed with relief. He opened the letter and looked at its contents. It was mostly as Chenchen had said.

However…

“Teacher says here that he’s taken in a final disciple?” he asked, puzzled.

“Yes. He’s the young man Dad rescued back when we ran away.” Chenchen was indifferent. “Who cares? I reckon that he’ll be gone soon enough. Who’d want to waste their precious youth on an healing art that can’t even be used to save oneself? Isn’t that a scam?”

“You’re right.” Zhao Decheng nodded. “As long as everything’s alright. We’re about to launch a massive operation soon. Evil Spirits are causing trouble in a southern village. The Benevolent Virtue Hall has given the order. I’ve accepted it for us both. You coming?”

“Let’s go. I have nothing to do recently,” Chenchen agreed.

…..

Net Dragon Horn. The Tu Residence.

“Thank you for the treatment, Doctor Tu. Here’s the payment.” A white-haired old man slowly put on his clothes again, covering most of the pus-filled ulcers on his shoulder. Then, he produced a translucent round coin from his sleeve and gave it to Tu Jin.

“This is… a bit too much…” Tu Jin took the ice money. He was hesitant.

“Take the change as a token of this old man’s gratitude. All these years, you’re the only one who’s capable of treating this old ailment of mine. I’ve gone to the main city, Kind Heart Sect, and Good Fortune Temple, but none of them could do anything about this insect poison,” the old man replied with a smile.

“Very well, then. It’d be impolite for me to refuse.” Tu Jin accepted the ice money. He stood up and walked the old man out the door.

Lu Sheng was finishing up with a bandage on a little child’s arm. He told the child things that he should look out for after this.

After sending the child away, the entire medical hall was quite deserted.

De Yun could deal with the remaining patients.

Tu Jin stood up and walked toward Lu Sheng. He silently placed a book on his desk. Then, he turned around and left.

Lu Sheng picked up the book and saw a sentence written on it.

“Burn it after you read it, it’s the Tu Style transplanting art.”

‘Finally…’

Lu Sheng was slightly excited. He did not waste his time in the end. He showed Tu Jin his shocking talents. He was capable of mastering everything Tu Jin taught him, and even invented 10 alternatives to every single method.

After another period of practical treatment, Tu Jin had completely recognized that Lu Sheng’s mastery was not much inferior to his own.

At most, there was a difference in the things they knew and the skills in surgery.

It could be said that Lu Sheng was the most talented person among all the people Tu Jin had seen before. He had never met a person with such shocking talents.

In a short few months, half of the medical skills which he had accumulated over the decades had been given away.

With this, he decided to put his remaining transplanting art into a book and pass it to Lu Sheng.

He did not want Lu Sheng to ask some unexpected questions he could not answer in the middle of his teaching. That would not look good for him.

Lu Sheng picked up the transplanting art book, stood up, and went into the inner courtyard. In truth, he had already started trying transplanting organs. He had conducted many experiments on animals as well.

However, the results were not at all satisfactory.

This book came at just the right moment.

During the night, Lu Sheng swiftly devoured the contents of the book.

He was immediately shocked by the profound technique outlined in the text. The medical skills and technical secret arts involved were definitely not the fruits of a doctor’s lone search for knowledge.

The conclusions in the book could only be reached after a huge group of people explored and conducted countless experiments.

The night Lu Sheng obtained the book, his wish of incorporating it into his own martial path suddenly became possible.

Another two months passed by in the blink of an eye.

…

“Bam!”

In the underground cave.

Lu Sheng looked at the strangely shaped living thing before himself calmly. It’d suddenly exploded into a puddle of flesh and blood.

“So, it’s really not possible to merge the cells of the reproductive organs of ants and another insect into a scorpion, huh?” Lu Sheng frowned. He turned around and went back to the deepest corridor of the cave.

Through his digging, there were now a dozen rooms in the underground cave. It was now an underground base equipped with several experiment halls.

Inscribed plates hung on the doors which lined both sides of the corridor.

“Insect fusion”, “fish fusion”, “cross-fusion”, “collective transplant”…

The rooms were labeled according to the various kinds of experiments that were conducted inside them.

Lu Sheng kept walking further into the base. He quickly stopped before a room with the label “special organ transplant”.

He pushed the door open slowly.

“Auurrr!”

Suddenly, a deafening sound wave surged out of the room. Lu Sheng’s hair was blown backward.

A black tiger with white keratinoid armor was being shackled with dozens of chains within a rock pool inside the room.

Not only was the black tiger covered in white keratinoid armor, its eyes were also gouged out. They were replaced by the eyeballs of a formidable creature known as the Deathdusk Stag.

Deathdusk Stags had a special ability to unleash invisible mental storms. However, because of their extremely small size, the intensity of the wind could only move tree leaves or stun small insects which they liked to feed on.

However, when Lu Sheng discovered them, he quickly collected the cells from their eyeballs. With the unique skills of his transplanting art, he constructed a pair of huge eyeballs and transplanted them to this black tiger.