Way of the Devil

The clanging of silverware on the plates snapped Lu Sheng out of his thoughts.

It was a spacious and brightly lit living room. He was having a meal at a wooden rectangular table.

This world was very similar to the modern times on Earth. There were all sorts of firearms. Besides all this, there was an unimaginably powerful kind of beings here, Gesha.

‘Geshas are beings that resemble naturally born divine spirits. Beings such as this wield unparalleled terrifying abilities. They’re beings that humans can never hope to go up against. However, only young boys and girls can wield this terrible power.’

Lu Sheng was entertaining some thoughts. He feigned an occasional glance at his young siblings who sat opposite himself.

If he was not wrong in his judgement, his twin younger siblings in this world were the mysterious Geshas.

Lu Sheng was already here for a fortnight.

From the moment he Arrived in this world, he noticed that something was off.

Everything in this world was too normal and calm. The limitations imposed by the rules were not too severe. However, that was not the key point. The main intriguing part was with the small group of mysterious and formidable beings, the Geshas.

His host’s surname was Du, and his full name was Du Xiong. He had been born into a family that was well-off.

His father managed a small company, while his mother was a jewelry designer who had won many awards. She could be regarded as a celebrated professional.

The first child this couple was blessed with was his host, Du Xiong.

Then, they had twins, who were also his younger siblings, Du Qiu and Du Xia.

When Lu Sheng Arrived, Du Xiong had just recently turned 18, and was deemed an adult. His siblings were 12. Both of them had refined, gender-neutral appearances. It was impossible to tell their sex.

Lu Sheng lowered his head and spooned some beef stew into his mouth. With the edge of his vision, he glanced at his young brother Du Qiu opposite him.

Du Qiu looked up and gave him a sweet smile. Then, he ventured a question carefully. “Brother, Little Xia and I would like to go to Yuseyland, can we go?”

Their parents were not home. Du Xiong, who was now replaced by Lu Sheng, was the decision maker now.

“Sure. Don’t come back too late,” Lu Sheng replied in a low voice as he mimicked Du Xiong’s tone.

Du Xiong’s personality was cold and introverted. He was a person who was quite self-disciplined. He did not know that his younger siblings were abnormal. He was merely living the life of an ordinary person in an ordinary family.

He was completely oblivious to the cruel fights between Geshas which went on in the shadows.

Because of his personality, he loved his younger siblings very much, but he was also very strict with them.

In addition to that, Du Xiong also had high requirements for himself. He was very self-disciplined. He had been living his life as a good elder brother, an outstanding son, and an outstanding student.

Perhaps it was because of that, but Du Xiong had always been under intense psychological pressure. Before Lu Sheng Arrived, there was a period of time when he had self-harming tendencies to vent his stress.

The three of them ate their breakfast quickly.

Du Xia and Du Qiu softly discussed the attractions they should visit first in the park later.

Lu Sheng, on the other hand, silently organized the information he’d obtained with his spirit throughout the past few days. He’d obtained the information about the Geshas from the government officials who kept tabs on Du Xie and Du Qiu.

Currently, the Gesha Power had just recently awakened in Du Xia and Du Qiu. This terrifying power that was unreasonably powerful was secretly regarded as godly power by the world.

The term “Gesha” held the meaning of a child of god in an ancient language.

After finishing their breakfast, Du Xia and Du Qiu obediently said their goodbyes to him. They changed into fresh clothes, put on their coats, and left.

Lu Sheng was left alone in the house.

According to the usual arrangement, he still had a huge pile of homework he had to complete from school. Also, he had to go out for his part-time job, and he would tidy up the house.

It was the weekend, and Du Xiong was already a senior in high school. He had to prepare for the major examination as well.

However, those were things that the original Du Xiong would do.

“Click.”

Lu Sheng closed the main door and sighed softly. He turned around and looked at the spacious living room. He tidied the table and placed the dishes in the wash basin.

Then, he went to his own room upstairs.

He found a set of loose dark gray sports attire from his wardrobe and put it on. Lu Sheng locked his door from the inside and pulled the curtains.

“Now, I should think about improving this body’s strength. From Du Xia and Du Qiu, I can sense some extremely dangerous and terrifying power. With my current spirit, I can’t even tell how powerful they are. Even if they hid their powers silently, they’d surely attract unforeseeable trouble sooner or later,” Lu Sheng muttered to himself.

He glanced at his remaining Mental Energy units. Back in the rabbit world, after using some Mental Energy for the derivation, he was left with more than 170,000 Mental Energy units.

If he’d been in any ordinary world, this amount of Mental Energy would have surely been enough. However, this was a world that was most likely as dangerous as the Yellow Springs Planet and Libra City. He reckoned that this amount would only guarantee some form of self-protection at most.

‘I should carefully think about a way to blend into this world and settle my karma.’

Du Xiong’s karma and wish were simple.

‘Live a good life. Take care of father, mother, brother, and sister. Have a happy and peaceful life with the family.’

His wish was simple, but the problem was that his siblings were not.

After understanding more about powerful beings such as the Geshas, Lu Sheng lost all hope of having a stable life in the future.

‘Fortunately, I can still use my spirit. This world does not overly restrict spirits. But this body is too weak. It won’t be able to endure it if I used my spirit too much.’ With his current spirit, he could scan an area of several hundred meters.

‘Let’s give this world’s usual path a try.’ Every time he Arrived in a new world, Lu Sheng preferred to rise up the ranks according the world’s own power system.

The strength that he obtained this way would turn out to be the most suitable for the current world. No matter how powerful he became, his power would never suddenly fail him or suddenly exceed the limits and trigger the world to reject him, which would result in him being deported back home.

Lu Sheng switched on his table lamp. He lifted the lid of the laptop on his right and pushed the power button.

A dozen seconds later, the screen displayed a series of unique-looking letters.

This was the most common operating system in this world. It was similar to Microsoft XP, but had a higher compatibility compared to XP.

Lu Sheng quickly connected to the internet. He did not understand the arithmetic operators used by the computers in this world. He had no intentions of studying them, either. Instead, he searched for various cultivation methods with his browser.

The country he was currently in was known as the European Federation. It adopted the standard presidential system of federations. Martial arts of various countries were popular here.

Zodiac Fist, Thiratha mixed martial arts, and teitedo were three of the most popular martial arts, among others.

If one had to rank them, they were the equivalents of taekwondo, muay thai, karate, and other martial arts that were known internationally.

Many people practiced these three martial arts. However, most of them were only of the hobbyist level. Merely a handful of them could take the belt exams.

What surprised Lu Sheng was that the firearms in this world were not backward. There were many kinds of weapons of mass destruction.

There were even terrifying weapons like nuclear weapons.

For a time, there was only the crisp clicking of his mouse in the room.

He quickly picked the martial arts he would like to cultivate. He chose the Zodiac Fist and teitedo. This was because he could find teachers for these martial arts in the town.

‘Although I don’t have much hopes for these, I should just give them a try.’ Lu Sheng took a cursory glance at the information. Then, he found the nearest boxing gym, took down its address, and left the house.

He did not waste any time. He went there by a taxi.

The boxing gym was situated on a southern street where snacks were sold. When Lu Sheng arrived, there were many people entering and leaving the place. Most of them wore light blue training attire. Most of the students were primary and secondary school students.

The boxing gym was not huge. It was only the size of a basketball court. When Lu Sheng went in, he could see many parents waiting for their children to finish training.

When Lu Sheng glanced at the movements of the official coaches there as they did their demonstrations, he shook his head internally and said nothing. Those were merely demonstrations; he could not imagine what they would look like in actual combat.

However, Lu Sheng decided not to judge the martial art by its practitioners. Hence, he stayed there for a while longer and observed the class. He combined what he saw with the relevant information and videos he found on the internet, and quickly understood teitedo’s techniques.

The main weapons were the elbows and edges of the palms. Teitedo’s emphasis lay on unleashing explosive attacks rapidly within a short time and distance.

The specialty was that it was powerful for close-quarters combat, had swift explosive power, and was brutally precise in its attacks. It was compatible with many spearing techniques.

In addition to that, the forms were majestic and elegant, which was why it was so popular. There were boxing gyms teaching this all over the world.

When Lu Sheng saw that the coach was free, he went up and struck a conversation with him.

From the conversation, he learned that there were international regulatory bodies for teitedo. There were 12 dans that were categorized into four stages to differentiate between a rookie, qualifier, skilled, and a specialist.

Lu Sheng asked for more details. He even learned that there were two kinds of assessments, one for amateurs, and one for professionals.

The professionals were those who actually had enough power to do real harm. There were many armies who employed the elites of teitedo as well as part of their optimized attack force.

The coach was passionate. He even allowed Lu Sheng to experience a class on the basic techniques.

Lu Sheng came out of the boxing gym and went to the other dojos, including the Zodiac Fist boxing gym. His experiences were similar.

He asked around for details on being instructed in professional martial arts with great destructive power. The answer he got was that he would have to climb up the amateur ranks before moving on to a professional elite and eventually be tutored by them.

Lu Sheng returned home and extracted some gold from his main body. He pawned the gold off and received more than 100,000 lus in federal notes.

Then, he registered himself in a few of the most-skilled boxing gyms which he had visited today. He started on his path of learning the fist.

Days passed by. Lu Sheng did nothing else but go to school and practice his punches. He would also spend some time with his younger siblings at home.

Although he did not have much time to spend on training, it was not an issue for his extremely formidable spirit, which granted him the most detailed control over his body.

Under his spirit’s micromanagement, Du Xiong’s body was constantly experiencing slight tensions in his muscles. This was equivalent to him working out all the time.

If he felt tired or exhausted, his energy would be replenished by Yang Essence. If he was injured or he pulled a hamstring, his injuries could also be quickly healed with his Yang Essence working in tandem with his spirit.

In addition to that, Lu Sheng himself had peak combat experiences of the grandmaster level.

In a week, he had beaten three boxing gyms, with their respective coaches included. In the second week, he beat another four boxing gyms, effectively becoming a real genius who was skilled in various types of martial arts.

His body weight rose from the initial 100 kilograms to more than 200 kilograms. The contours of his muscles were not obvious, but without relying on Mental Energy, Lu Sheng’s pace of improvement was already at the limit allowed by his current body.

He progressed by leaps and bounds with his constant training.

Even now, Lu Sheng stuck to his principle of saving his Mental Energy for the crucial breakthroughs.