Chapter Sixty: The Demon Power Shield and the Shadow Art of Demons

“Damn witch—no, my spirit stones...”
The young man quickly recalled: he had been picking a medicinal herb when a masked woman in black, wearing a straw hat, descended from the sky and knocked him unconscious.
He had no idea what vile method she had used, but she had turned him into a pig-headed fool. While weeping in misery, he wanted to curse her, yet feared she might still be nearby, so he anxiously glanced around. Fortunately, no one was present.
At last he exhaled deeply, rubbing his cheeks and muttering curses under his breath.
Then, upon discovering that all the spirit stones in his storage pouch had vanished, he could not help but howl in despair.
Boom, boom, boom—
Amid the roar and flying stone debris, Chu Xin’er halted before a cliff in a secluded valley, directing her flying sword to carve out the outline of a cave abode’s passage.
It was the second evening since they had left the Lingnan Market. Inside the spirit beast pouch, thanks to ambushing two junior cultivators, Xiao Wenzi had obtained over a thousand fourth-tier system coins and was joyfully cultivating.
He did not help the girl—not out of unwillingness, but because in her eyes, he was still a patient whose vitality had yet to recover, needing quiet rest. If he appeared too energetic, his cover would be blown.
Though it was Chu Xin’er’s first time opening a cave abode, both her progress and the final result were somewhat lacking. But it was not meant to be permanent; a hall for shelter and a chamber for cultivation were sufficient.
Hence, before nightfall, though her spiritual power was somewhat depleted, she managed to finish this “arduous” task.
Chu Xin’er chose an extremely hidden valley, and the surrounding mountain range spanned barely a hundred miles. There were no fierce monsters, though ordinary beasts were plentiful.
Without setting up an array, the cave’s safety could not be guaranteed.
After a brief meditation to restore some spiritual energy, Chu Xin’er immediately began studying the array.
Luckily, lower-tier arrays were simple, and with the guidance of a jade slip, all she needed to do was bury the array flags as instructed and place spirit stones at the array base to activate it.
As dusk fell, the girl buried several array flags outside the cave, inserting the spirit stones she had just scavenged from the unlucky youth, then took out the array disk and infused it with magic power to activate the formation.
Watching as a layer of mist enveloped the cave, obscuring any details from the outside, Chu Xin’er nodded in satisfaction, stepped inside, and closed the main door.

Entering the cultivation chamber, inlaid with a luminous pearl, the girl sat cross-legged on a stone platform and began meditating, adjusting her state to its peak before taking the spiritual pill to break through her bottleneck.
In the hall outside, Xiao Wenzi was also cultivating in the spirit beast pouch.
His situation was much better than Chu Xin’er’s; with three to four thousand system coins, he could consume mid-grade Gathering Monster Pills like candy. Even if advancing Blood Spirit Technique was difficult, given enough time, he could easily break through.
Buzz—his body trembled and thundered; with frequent use of Gathering Monster Pills over the past two days, Xiao Wenzi naturally reached the peak of the fourth tier.
In cultivation, the fifth tier was the watershed for initiates; before the fifth tier, one was merely dipping a toe into the immortal path, but after, one truly entered the threshold.
Once this major barrier in the Qi Refining stage was surpassed, not only did spiritual power multiply, but its purity and refinement underwent a qualitative transformation.
Simply put, a cultivator at the fifth tier of Qi Refining could easily defeat a fourth-tier junior, and the situation was much the same for demon cultivators.
If Xiao Wenzi broke through to the fifth tier of the Demon Qi realm, his spellcasting would not only last longer but its power would double.
Time passed unnoticed in cultivation; in the blink of an eye, the cave’s doors had been closed for nearly a month.
Howling winds and scattered snowflakes drifted down, and at last, the first snow arrived in this unremarkable mountain range in southeastern Tian’nan Prefecture.
Yet Chu Xin’er, still at the critical moment of breaking through her bottleneck, was utterly unaware, while Xiao Wenzi in the hall was busy experimenting with newly unlocked spells.
After more than twenty days of pill-assisted cultivation, he finally broke through to the fifth tier of the Demon Qi realm.
Having advanced so rapidly, Xiao Wenzi felt his realm was unstable and decided to slow down for a while.
In truth, since his arrival in this world, barely half a year had passed. In such a short period, even the favored disciples of great sects could not easily break through five tiers.
Take Chu Xin’er, for example: it took her seven or eight years to reach the tenth tier of Qi Refining. Her recent breakthrough to the peak of the tenth tier was only possible because she had already lingered in the late tenth tier for half a year.
Even with the aid of a spiritual pill, she took nearly a month to finally shatter her last bottleneck.
Excess breeds harm; the predecessors of cultivation often warned that breaking through realms too quickly would leave unstable foundations and sow hidden dangers for future progress.

Although Xiao Wenzi was a demon cultivator, he had consumed too many pills, and this principle applied to him as well, though no one had warned him beforehand.
He did not understand the importance of steady progress, but since he sensed that further breakthroughs might cause trouble, he decided to focus on cultivating the two new demon arts he had acquired.
The Demon Power Shield and Demon Shadow Technique were obtained from the fourth and fifth tier arts, respectively.
The Demon Power Shield was akin to a cultivator’s spiritual power barrier—a fundamental spell that spread demon power outside the body to form a protective shield.
After two or three days of practice, Xiao Wenzi could now control it at will; the grayish shield was only marble-sized, yet it could envelop his entire body.
Though he had not tested it in actual combat, Xiao Wenzi believed that, with the wonders of the Blood Spirit Technique, his shield could withstand a full-force attack from a peer without issue.
Once proficient in the Demon Power Shield, Xiao Wenzi began training in the Demon Shadow Technique.
This art resembled the shadow clones from an anime he had watched in his previous life, but the Demon Shadow Technique produced only illusions that served to confuse the enemy.
Moreover, the number of illusory clones depended on the practitioner’s realm; at Xiao Wenzi’s current level, he could create only two shadows at full power.
Simply put, with his true self included, there were three identical little mosquitoes.
If facing a peer, he could use the confusion to launch a surprise attack, but against someone of much higher realm, the technique would hardly be effective, as the opponent could easily discern which was his real body and target it.
Buzz—
In the cave hall, Xiao Wenzi’s form flickered and split into three identical selves.
All three little mosquitoes fluttered their wings in perfect unison; without close scrutiny, it would be hard to tell which was the original. Such was the subtlety of the Demon Shadow Technique.