The nature of the Demon Sect was completely different. Ever since Mo Painting entered the boundary of the Dry Learning State, he had often mixed with the Dao Court Division on bounty hunts. Now, when it came to these demonic criminals and evil demons, he could distinguish them more clearly than before.

Criminal cultivators referred to cultivators who had violated Dao laws. These cultivators might have initially been from the righteous path, cultivating righteous techniques, but due to the stirring of personal desires or a moment of impulse, they committed crimes such as killing, stealing, plundering, defiling, and harvesting, thus being wanted by the Dao Court Division. Criminal cultivators lingered in gray areas, and their techniques often could not be distinguished as righteous or evil. Some criminal cultivators, even after killing people and breaking laws, could still live brightly and hypocritically in front of others, as long as they found ways to hide from observation and present themselves with a grand and proper identity. The prerequisite was that their crimes were not discovered by others, and the Dao Court Division could not investigate them.

The nature of evil demon cultivators was even more vicious, and they could be distinguished by their techniques and Dao laws. Evil cultivators referred to cultivators who had mistakenly entered the wrong path during cultivation, or who had fallen into demonic possession and learned certain demonic path techniques and spells. Evil cultivators who turned evil from the righteous path mostly acted alone. Occasionally they formed groups, but they were each for themselves, just temporarily gathered together. Their techniques, Dao laws, and systems were all different.

Demon cultivators were different. They gathered together with a clear purpose, had a unified leader, and committed evil acts with organization and planning. And the inheritance of these demon cultivators was also systematic; they cultivated the same type of demonic techniques, nurtured the same kind of evil tools, and displayed Dao laws from the same source. The demon path inheritance system was the most distinct difference between demon cultivators and evil cultivators.

At first, Mo Painting didn’t pay much attention to this point, but later, the more he came into contact with them, the stranger he felt the techniques of the demon path were. He then asked Gu Changhuai and some executives of the Dao Court Division who were apprehending demon cultivators on the front lines. Only then did he clearly understand the insidious and terrifying aspects of the demon path inheritance system.

Regardless of whether it was the righteous path or the evil path, cultivating the Dao required “resources.” The cultivation resources of righteous path cultivators were spirit stones. The cultivation resources of demon path cultivators were people. Or rather, “people” were the “spirit stones” of demon cultivators. Righteous path cultivators relied on their own efforts to extract spirit stones and refine spiritual energy. Although it was slow, they steadily cultivated towards the Great Dao step by step. This process was righteous, but also dry, arduous, and too slow. Therefore, demon cultivators took another path, going to kill, rob, and deprive others of their hard-cultivated blood energy and spiritual power. Such cultivation was faster and the killing was stronger. But cultivating in this manner, demon cultivators would encounter a bottleneck after cultivating to a certain degree. That was, relying on the power of one person to kill, rob, and deprive was still too slow.

Therefore, some powerful demon heads would develop “subordinates.” These demon heads would pass their own techniques to several disciples, letting these disciples go out and replace them in killing, robbing, and absorbing blood energy and spiritual power. A part of the absorbed blood energy and spiritual power would be digested by these disciples themselves, but most of it would still be “offered up” to the demon head. This was because the demonic techniques of the demon path disciples were passed down by the demon head, and their cultivation advancement and retreat, the strength and weakness of their Dao laws, and even their own life and death were all controlled by the demon head. They had to submit.

And suppose these demon path disciples dominated by the demon head wanted to become strong, they would have to independently develop “subordinates” again. They had to take disciples, pass down techniques, and then absorb spiritual power and blood energy from their disciples’ bodies to gradually become strong. The disciples of disciples would pass down again layer by layer. In this way, as the demonic techniques were passed down more widely, the demon sect disciples increased, the forces grew larger, and the “blood energy” and “spiritual power” absorbed from righteous path cultivators also increased. In this way, the original demon head ancestor received more offerings, and his cultivation naturally became more powerful.

This was the “transmission of Dao” system of the Demon Sect. This system would have some exceptions, but it generally wouldn’t change. Layer by layer exploitation and oppression, layer by layer blood sucking and spirit absorption, layer by layer offering up. The endpoint of evil cultivators was the demon cultivators who transmitted techniques. The endpoint of demon cultivators was the demon sect that transmitted the Dao. And the endpoint of the demon sect was the “Great Demon Hall,” which was led by the demon lord, stood above billions of people, raised countless “blood slaves” and “spirit slaves,” sucked people dry, monopolized everything.

This was the secret that Mo Painting had probed out by combining sect classics and inquiring in all directions. Of course, now that the Dao Court was unified, promoting righteous laws, exterminating demon cultivators, and burning all demon path techniques and classics, the “Great Demon Hall” had already been buried in the historical river of the cultivation world, and very few people mentioned it again. But as long as human nature had greed, anger, and delusion, there would be demons. Demon cultivators were very difficult to eradicate completely. The form of the Demon Sect’s transmission of Dao naturally also remained.

Moreover, compared with gray criminal cultivators, lone evil cultivators, and ordinary demon cultivators who were a mixed bag, the demon sect, which possessed a certain scale, inherited from the same source, had a strict structure, and could spread like a plague through “techniques transmitting the Dao,” even if it was a small demon sect, its organizational power was stronger, its destructive power was greater, and its danger was also higher.

“A demon sect that cultivates blood system demonic techniques has recently emerged in the boundary of the Dry Learning State.” “The demon cultivators within the demon sect will absorb the flesh and blood of cultivators. They have already committed three major cases: extinguishing a second-grade small family, a small village outside an immortal city, and a gathering of cultivators, where nearly a thousand cultivators were killed.” Gu Changhuai’s expression was solemn. Mo Painting was also frowning.

“Not only that,” Gu Changhuai said, “these demon sects are still developing ‘subordinates,’ spreading demonic techniques, and further expanding their forces. The difficulty for the Dao Court Division to handle is also constantly increasing.”

“The leader is a big demon cultivator in the Gold Core period?” Mo Painting asked.

“Yes,” Gu Changhuai nodded, saying with a severe expression, “and not just one. The Gold Core elders within the demon sect are estimated to number more than ten.”

More than ten Gold Core… Mo Painting took a slight breath of cold air. In the periphery of the Dry Learning State boundary, more than ten Gold Core demon cultivators might truly be extraordinary. Among the many forces cultivating the Dao, those in the Hollow Void stage guarding one side were ancestor-level figures who would not easily act and basically did not move. Those walking outside, the top heaven figures, were only at the Feathered stage.

Initially, when the demon path and righteous path cultivators surrounded and trapped Master in Departure Mountain City in the Great Departure Mountain State boundary, the highest cultivation level mobilized was only Feathered. At that time, he was still young, his cultivation was low, his vision was shallow, and he didn’t feel it deeply. Now, upon reflection, so many True Immortals in the Feathered realm were basically the “top” combat power that general big forces could mobilize. Mo Painting even guessed that among the believers of the Great Wilderness Evil God, that mysterious and unpredictable “Mister Tu” hiding behind the scenes should also only be at the Feathered stage.

Mo Painting had encountered quite a few True Immortals in the Feathered realm and didn’t feel much about it, but he was only at the Foundation Building stage now. If he truly wanted to cultivate to that level himself, it would be like looking at a mountain and watching a dead horse run, remotely without end. And below Feathered was Gold Core. Even in some big families, Gold Core was considered a core force of the family. What’s more, in these second and third-grade small immortal cities in the periphery of the Dry Learning State boundary, Fire Buddha and Water Yanluo at the peak of the Foundation Building stage could still run rampant on one side. These demon heads in the Gold Core realm with demon sect inheritance, organization, and planning were undoubtedly a great “disaster” from heaven.

Mo Painting sighed. But this was a game for Gold Core cultivators. As a Foundation Building cultivator, he could only be powerless. If he dared to enter the game, he would be slapped to death in minutes. He still struggled for so long with Fire Buddha, a Foundation Building peak cultivator, let alone these more than ten Gold Core cultivators from the demon sect.

“Will the Dao Court Division send more people?” Mo Painting asked.

Gu Changhuai said: “I cannot tell you the specifics, but the Dao Court Division has already begun to transfer standard officers at the Gold Core realm from nearby state boundaries to help. After all, the emergence of a demon sect is a big matter no matter where it is placed, let alone in the Dry Learning State boundary where sects are numerous.”

Mo Painting nodded, then looked at Gu Changhuai worriedly. “Uncle Gu, then you also be a little careful.” This kind of matter with the demon sect might not be a joke.

“It doesn’t matter, I have a plan in my heart,” Gu Changhuai said. Although he said so, his expression was very solemn, obviously this matter was not easy. Mo Painting sighed slightly in his heart. Uncle Gu was just like that, he had some arrogance in his bones, and he would carry the bitterness himself. If he didn’t have to talk to others, he wouldn’t open his mouth.

“Alright, anyway, you yourself be a little careful,” Mo Painting said. With a blood-sucking demon sect and more than ten Gold Core cultivators, he really couldn’t help much either.

Gu Changhuai nodded, “You rest assured.”

The year-end banquet ended, and the Gu family master personally dispatched a carriage to send Mo Painting back to the Tai Xu Gate. Several more days passed, and the New Year festival ended. A new year also began. This was Mo Painting’s seventh year at the Tai Xu Gate. Starting from this year, it was the academic year for the late Foundation Building stage. Only Mo Painting was still in the middle Foundation Building stage. He also formally became the first and so far the only disciple at the Tai Xu Gate who directly entered the late Foundation Building semester with a cultivation in the middle Foundation Building stage.

Mo Painting therefore appeared somewhat “out of place.” What was even more out of place was that a group of disciples in the late Foundation Building stage still had to call him “Little Senior Brother.” This made him feel a lot of pressure. As this Little Senior Brother, not only did he not play the role of a “model,” but he actually dragged his feet and became the “last one.” He still relied on connections to not be held back.

What was even more important was that Mo Painting knew that all the disciples, whether it was Cheng Mo, Situ Jian, Hao Xuan, Yang Qianjun, or Linghu Xiao, Little Wood, all smoothly advanced to the late Foundation Building stage. Only he was in the middle Foundation Building stage. Mo Painting was very uncomfortable. Therefore, his first priority thereafter was to break through to the late Foundation Building stage as soon as possible, the faster the better.

Thereafter, Mo Painting devoted himself to cultivation. Finally, one morning a month later, Mo Painting cultivated as usual. One by one, the spirit stones were refined by him into pure spiritual energy, which wandered along the meridians, underwent a great heavenly cycle, gathered in the qi sea, and precipitated into mercury-like spiritual power. Time and time again, Mo Painting cultivated steadily, without haste or impatience. And finally, water drops penetrated stone. Mo Painting’s qi sea trembled, his spiritual power boiled, and all his meridians and acupoints felt some dry heat. This was a sign that cultivation had encountered a bottleneck. Mo Painting’s spirit was roused.

But the breakthrough of the Heaven Derivation Art was different from general techniques. After all, this was an ancient technique, strange and obscure, and it didn’t follow the common path. After the whole body’s spiritual power boiled, it didn’t break through, but scattered out some small silk threads, overflowing from the meridians, wandering along the fine veins, and gradually gathering towards Mo Painting’s Hundred Meetings acupoint. When they reached the Heaven Gate acupoint, these spiritual power silk threads, like silk threads, knotted into a curtain, broke through the barrier with flesh and blood bones, and penetrated towards the inner knowledge sea. Finally, the spiritual power and knowledge sea intertwined, manifesting complex array patterns one by one, knotting into obscure arrays one by one, constantly fusing and weaving, like hundreds of rivers returning to the sea, a dragon spider spitting silk, turning into a large spiritual curtain-like puzzle array.

Mo Painting had seen this scene from the Qi Refining stage, and he had seen it many times. Now looking at it again, the whole process was largely similar. But this time’s bottleneck was somewhat different. The array patterns were more advanced, the puzzle array was more complex, and the volume was also larger. These were not the most crucial things. The most crucial thing was that the color of the puzzle array was pure gold. This was the color of divine marrow. In other words, it was also the color of “divine sense Dao-ization.” Mo Painting approached the puzzle array, compared the color of his own divine sense incarnation with the color of the puzzle array, and found that the “gold shiny” of his own body was far less pure than the gold color of the puzzle array. This also meant that the level of his own divine sense “Dao-ization” had not reached the requirements of the Heaven Derivation Art.

Mo Painting tried to communicate with the thought power of the puzzle array and use it to break the array. But the puzzle array, which floated in the knowledge sea and was interwoven by spiritual power and thought power, was like gold water injected stroke by stroke, heavy as a thousand jun. Mo Painting tried his best, but with his divine sense, he simply could not mobilize it. This also meant that he didn’t even have the qualification to “break the puzzle array.”

Mo Painting sucked a breath of cold air. Although he had some psychological preparation early on, the “perversity” of this Heaven Derivation Art still exceeded his expectations. With his current realm of divine sense Dao-ization, he hadn’t even reached the qualification to cultivate? Exactly who learned this ancient technique in ancient times? Was it really reasonable for the threshold to be so high? Could it be that divine beasts or gods learned it? Or were ancient cultivators all existences whose divine sense was “perverse” powerful?

Mo Painting was speechless. He sat down, looking at the gold-colored puzzle array all over the sky, and spontaneously felt a sense of powerlessness, sighing involuntarily. However, difficulties were difficulties, and he always had to find ways to overcome them. Sighing was also useless. Moreover, calculated up, this was the bottleneck of the late Foundation Building stage, the last big threshold before Gold Core. Once he stepped over it, the next step would be to condense the core. Condense the core! Mo Painting’s spirit was roused, and he began to calm down and consider how to break the bottleneck.

From the current perspective, the bottleneck of the Heaven Derivation Art had two requirements: one was the degree of divine sense qualitative change, that is, the realm of divine sense “Dao-ization” mentioned by Old Man Huang Shan. This kind of realm was expressed by the color of divine marrow. The other was the spiritual curtain of the all-over-the-sky puzzle array woven by spiritual power and divine sense. But for the current Mo Painting, the puzzle array was easier to handle. His second-grade array skills, especially the second-grade arrays of the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams categories, were already proficient to perfection, and even Old Man Xun praised them highly. So he could solve the puzzle array; at most, it would take some time.

The only problem was the realm of divine sense Dao-ization. Mo Painting was still quite a bit short. If he wanted to improve the realm of divine sense Dao-ization and enhance the degree of divine sense qualitative change, he had to devour “divine marrow.” Moreover, it seemed that one or two points of “mosquito legs” divine marrow were not enough. He had to eat a large amount of divine marrow.

Again, it was divine marrow… Mo Painting had a headache. He pondered slightly. If he wanted to eat divine marrow, the first method was still as always, starting from the body of the Great Wilderness Evil God. Find an altar, kill the god’s remains, refine the divine marrow, and then perform divine sense Dao-ization after swallowing it. But the current situation was somewhat bad. He had used the identity of the “evil fetus” and the authority of the Dragon King Temple altar to erase the blood oath list and extinguish the life souls of all the Evil God’s claws on it. Mister Tu was driven to desperation. Since the second-grade claws were all dead, he simply directly used third-grade Gold Core. He simply couldn’t play in a Gold Core game.

In addition, there was still the hidden danger of the evil fetus in his body. Of course, even without the evil fetus, it was not suitable to run around everywhere now. Because he was now the “First in Dry Learning, Chief of Array Dao,” at least he was considered a “celebrity.” People feared fame as pigs feared fat. He was now “fat” to the extreme, being watched openly and secretly by many people. Mo Painting himself didn’t think that he, this obscure little disciple, would one day actually be tied down by fame. And precisely because of this, for the next period of time, he would have to shrink in the Tai Xu Gate and could not go out, trying not to go out.

In this way, after racking his brains, there seemed to be only one unique path: slay the evil fetus. If he slayed the evil fetus within his own life soul and refined its divine marrow, he could then make his divine sense further Dao-ize, break the bottleneck of the Heaven Derivation Art, and reach the late Foundation Building stage. However, Mo Painting had already thought about the idea of “slaying the evil fetus” many times. The problem was not whether he wanted to slay it or not, but that now he was not able to slay the god, and with his means, he fundamentally could not slay the evil fetus. He had always been cultivating the Tai Xu Slay God Sword. Every day, he would also slay one sword at his own divine soul. Every time he slayed one sword, the evil fetus would weaken by one point. But he had been slaying for so long, and the evil fetus looked weaker day by day, but no matter how he slayed it, it was still like a dog skin plaster, stubbornly stuck, with extremely tenacious vitality. Mo Painting was not sure exactly how many more times he needed to slay to slaughter this evil fetus.

He could also accelerate the progress and slay several swords every day. But in this way, the burden on the divine soul would increase, and he would need “divine marrow” to repair it. This was entering a dead end. He needed divine marrow to repair the slay god sword and slay the evil fetus. But he could only obtain divine marrow by killing the evil fetus. Without divine marrow, he could not slay the evil fetus, and if he could not slay the evil fetus, he could not obtain divine marrow… This was almost a “dead knot.” Mo Painting sighed. After several days, he was still pondering this matter. But this “dead knot” was not so easy to untie.

Several days later, it was again a seven-day period. Mo Painting drew arrays, reviewed his sword Dao lessons, and then sat in his disciple’s residence, waiting for Ancestor Dugu to come and grab him. A moment later, a crack in the void flashed. Mo Painting’s eyes blurred. When he reopened his eyes, he found that he had already arrived at the forbidden area of the back mountain, where the mountains were covered with dilapidated sword tombs. Ancestor Dugu, as always, imparted sword arts to Mo Painting, then tested Mo Painting’s sword Dao lessons, and finally let him hold a bamboo sword and chop wood as hard as stone. Mo Painting also did as usual. While Mo Painting was chopping wood, Ancestor Dugu frowned slightly, always looking at him. After chopping for half an hour, Ancestor Dugu suddenly shook his head: “Not good…”

Mo Painting was startled, turned his head, and asked: “Ancestor, am I chopping incorrectly?”

“You are chopping correctly,” Ancestor Dugu said, “but too slowly. With your progress, if you want to achieve something in sword arts, you will have to wait until the year of the monkey and the month of the horse.” “And by the time your sword arts have achievements and you can learn divine sense turning into a sword, perhaps by then, I will have already been boiled to death by you.”

Mo Painting: “…”

“Ancestor, you are in the Hollow Void, you will certainly live for millions of years,” Mo Painting said.

Ancestor Dugu’s expression was indifferent: “Don’t say these flattering words. I see my own life and death very clearly.”

“Then…” Mo Painting scratched his head, “Should I not practice?”

Ancestor Dugu shook his head, “I have considered it, you have to change the way you practice.”

“Change the way?”

“Yes.” Ancestor Dugu’s gaze was sharp, seeming to see through everything. “You are different from others. You have to walk a different path, otherwise a bright pearl will be covered in dust and talent will be buried.”