As Mo Xuan observed the Mo Ling King sitting cross-legged on a mat, meditating, he felt the demon energy around him had intensified noticeably since the Mo Ling King had consumed the pills. He realized that the jade gourd contained elixirs that enhanced spiritual energy. It was clear that the Mo Ling King's powerful demon energy was thanks to these pills. Noticing a scroll that the Mo Ling King had placed aside, Mo Xuan looked closer, and to his shock, he nearly collapsed onto the ground at what he saw.
The scroll opened with four ancient characters: "Li Huo Xuan Gong."
If Mo Xuan were just starting out, he would certainly be influenced by the martial arts novels of his past life and mistake this for some martial arts secret manual. However, in this world of gods and demons, only one type of cultivation method or secret could possibly earn the title of "Xuan Gong," and that was the ancient shamanic secret arts practiced by powerful refining masters of old. The rulers of the primordial world, the powerful shaman race, mysteriously vanished after the world shattered and the heavens and earth became muddled. Along with their disappearance, their unrivaled techniques and formations faded as well, with only a few methods surviving to this day; the most famous being the Ba Jiu Xuan Gong of the Second Lord of Guanjing Pass.
For a long time, most people believed that apart from the Ba Jiu Xuan Gong, all other shamanic Xuan Gong had been lost to history, not to mention the formations. Who would have expected to suddenly see another form of Xuan Gong here?
It should be noted that while shamanic Xuan Gong and Daoist arts share some similarities, they also differ fundamentally. The ancient great shamans were typically born of the mingling of the primordial chaos and Pangu's essence, emphasizing sanctity through the physical body. Their techniques focused on refining their physical forms.
In contrast, the earliest ancient refining masters of the Dao emphasized absorption, refinement, and application of the primordial energy within the heavens and earth. Ultimately, they would refine their souls into pure spiritual energy, placing less importance on the physical body.
Later, as the heavens and earth evolved and blended, both pure and impure energies filled the world, giving rise to various beings that embodied traits from both shamanism and Daoism.
In a sense, the cultivation methods of the demon race leaned more towards shamanism.
Regardless of the type of demon, each should possess a unique mastery that reflects their species, referred to as their innate magical ability. For instance, Mo Xuan and the Mo Ling King were both crows, believed to have descended from the ancient legendary three-legged golden crow, one of the suns shot down by the great shaman Hou Yi, endowed with the innate ability of solar fire.
Of course, this was simply superstition. In this world, aside from the lone survivor of the ancient era in the heavens, who could harness the power of solar fire, the one who resided high above, far removed from earthly matters?
The Li Huo Xuan Gong was the ultimate art of the great shaman Zhuyuan, the fire god.
For Mo Xuan and the Mo Ling King, who possessed a fire ancestry, Zhuyuan's Li Huo Xuan Gong was ideally suited to them.
Additionally, the ancient shaman race also possessed another ultimate skill: formations.
The primordial formations referred to those of the twelve ancient shamans, each having their own unique formation. The formations practiced among later shaman descendants evolved from these twelve original formations, resulting in unique formations for every shaman, whose potency depended on the practitioner's strength.
Within a formation's space, events occur that do not conform to heavenly laws, nor do they enter the cycle of reincarnation, functioning independently from the world — as was the case for Mo Xuan and Mo Ling King in this current space.
What transpires inside remains outside the purview of even the greatest sages.
With these thoughts, Mo Xuan suddenly felt enlightened!
So this was the reason I felt something!
This place is an excellent cover for divine insights!
Although my background is unusual, having spent time in this world of gods and demons would inevitably leave behind one or two clues. As my stay extends, the divine secrets would shift under my influence, and even small changes could allow those who had attained the mixed source to make deductions about much.
The longer I stay, the more they could deduce, increasing the chances of my exposure.
The difficulty of keeping my secrets safe would rise, yet now, I had an opportunity to conceal these divine insights and prevent others from discovering my origins — the key was in the Mo Ling King.
Like myself, the Mo Ling King was also a crow; if I could deal with him within this Zhuyuan formation, it would indeed be unnoticed, and then I could appear in this world with his identity. When others seek to calculate my background, the secrets would eventually be shifted to him without affecting me. It's akin to using a computer; if you delete a file, experts might be able to recover it. Still, if you create a new file with the same name in the same directory, even the best experts would struggle to find the original's content.
What Mo Xuan faced now was the same principle.
The opportunity was vast.
Incredibly, the Mo Ling King had become so complacent that he allowed me to unintentionally enter this formation space. Such a thing, in the past, would have been unimaginable from any other shaman, yet it happened.
Even more absurdly, the Mo Ling King, feeling secure within this Zhuyuan formation where no one could disturb him, was refining the Xuan Gong without any defenses. Consequently, without external intrusion, his cultivation speed naturally increased; however, this was also his most vulnerable moment. Although Mo Xuan currently possessed little demon energy remaining, given the Mo Ling King's critical state of cultivation, even an ant biting him could trigger a backlash.
A scorching heat emanated from the Mo Ling King as he reached a crucial moment in his Li Huo Xuan Gong cultivation, making it Mo Xuan's best opportunity.
Without hesitation, Mo Xuan's form flickered, revealing his true self, and approached the stone bed of the Mo Ling King. Clearing his throat, in normal times, the Mo Ling King would likely dismiss the cough as a mere noise. Yet now, at such a critical moment in his meditation, Mo Xuan's slight cough resonated like thunder in his mind, unsettling his aura. In an instant, his internal true fire went awry, and within a blink, the flesh of his body began to burn away, leaving only a wisp of residual soul, drifting aimlessly in that space.
The most tragic aspect was that it was a confined space; not even a ghost king could escape.
This wisp of residual soul, although aware of how to open the formation, found himself helpless; his entire magical power had been incinerated by the fiery force, leaving him unable to activate the space's escape. He could only watch helplessly as the mysterious man who had appeared before him in the formation space absorbed him, unable to even protest.