Chapter 1 Tang Chen

This man was called Tang Chen, and he was a practitioner from the Tang family. According to him, he wasn't a member of the main family, but he had recently been found to have some talent due to the spiritual energy resurgence, so he had begun cultivating.

Not to mention harming people, he hadn't even come into contact with the art of controlling ghosts yet.

It was basically impossible for a transcendent of this level to lie under Su Zhou's spiritual pressure—he could even see the movement of people's spiritual energy and changes in mood, and the movement of muscles and blood was naturally clear to him as well.

And under Tang Chen's explanation, the movements and structure of the Tang family's upper echelons became clear in Su Zhou's mind.

The power structure of the Tang Corporation was very classical, or rather, a bit old and decayed. The core of the family was the direct line, which possessed the transcendent inheritance, and the others were branch families that provided support around the direct line. The direct line provided the protection of power, and the branch families maintained the family and the direct line's cultivation through various methods.

Of course, this was also a helpless choice in the era before the resurgence of spiritual energy. After all, resources were limited, and if they wanted to cultivate an Awakened cultivator every generation, they had to gather power. Moreover, the boundaries between the direct line and the branch families were not strict. When the children of the main family did not have the talent for cultivation, they would adopt talented children from the branch families to become the new direct line.

Even, during the most difficult time in Zheng Country more than three hundred years ago, the Tang family had tried to engage in consanguineous marriage in order to maintain the family's spiritual power talent.

"This is going down the wrong path."

Hearing this, Su Zhou couldn't help but shake his head.

According to the spiritual power knowledge that Yala had told him, Su Zhou knew that the bloodline of parents did add to the spiritual power talent of children. If both parents were cultivators, it could indeed be guaranteed that their offspring would definitely have spiritual power talent, but this couldn't guarantee the level of talent.

In other words, even if both parents were geniuses, their children could only guarantee the lower limit of ‘being able to cultivate’ in that race at most, and the upper limit was random, just like children born to ordinary parents—except for transcendent races that were not flesh and blood and were born transcendent. Moreover, the lower limit of each race was different and could not be confused.

As for why? It was very simple.

Because in reality, all existing humans in the world, whether beggars or sages, were descendants of those adaptors with spiritual power talent in ancient times—those who didn't adapt to spiritual power had already become extinct tens of millions of years ago.

Tracing back to their ancestors, which family hadn't produced a genius? It was really difficult to find someone who really couldn't cultivate any spiritual power at all. And the randomness of spiritual power talent was probably also a bloodline system that the human race had chosen to evolve in a large spiritual energy environment in order to ensure that their bloodline would not be destroyed, ensuring that even the most dull parents could give birth to descendants with extraordinary talent.

In short, the current Tang family had a total of three Awakened high-level cultivators, five cultivators who had just advanced to Awakening, and seventeen Kai Ling cultivators. Today, it was Tang Chen and his branch's turn to work.

In other words, the strength of the Tang family was equivalent to three grandmasters, five ordinary, unranked Houtian (acquired) martial artists, and seventeen ordinary martial artists in the Shenmu world… Of course, combat power couldn't be calculated like this. Which martial artist in the Shenmu world hadn't experienced hundreds of battles and possessed secret skills?

The upper echelons of the direct line hadn't appeared in the company recently. Tang Chen himself heard that they had returned to a small village next to Heng City's suburbs. That small village was Tangjia Village, the ancestral home of their family, and Su Zhou quickly learned the address of this small village from him.

"Is that all the strength they have?"

After listening, Su Zhou even felt a little disappointed, and he scratched his head: "Unexpected."

In fact, he himself understood that this strength really couldn't be considered weak. Before Su Zhou went to the Shenmu world, he was only at the high level of Awakening, and his combat skills couldn't be considered pure. If he was besieged by these people with guns or magical artifacts, he might really suffer a loss.

Moreover, the entire Hundred Schools faction in the Shenmu world only had less than thirty grandmasters, and this Tang family could produce three, which was enough to prove their profound heritage.

"But Earth is not like the Shenmu world after all. Its inheritance has been cut off, its productivity is not developed, and the foundation of the people is not good… I originally thought that this Tang family would have at least seven or eight Awakened high-levels."

It wasn't that Su Zhou looked down on the Tang family, but that the Tang family was really too weak for him, who was about to advance to Transcendent, to the point that he didn't have any expectations. Su Zhou felt that he could probably destroy them with one hand… But when he thought about it, he became happy again: "It's a good thing that the bad guys are weak, at least it means they can't harm more people!"

Now that he had obtained the information, Su Zhou continued to transmit his voice to Tang Chen through the wall: "Your attitude is very good, I won't kill you, but I'm afraid I have to trouble you to be unconscious for a while."

"No problem, no problem!" Feeling that his life was hanging by a thread, Tang Chen immediately relaxed his tense muscles when he knew that he didn't have to die, but then he subconsciously asked: "But, can, can you let me relieve myself before knocking me out?"

After saying this, Tang Chen immediately realized that something was wrong, and his little heart contracted crazily. He obviously knew that he had asked a stupid question—peeing his pants was peeing his pants, how could face be more important than life! Why was he so talkative!

Moreover, judging from the sound, this great god who came from who knows where seemed to be here specifically for the direct line… In the days to come, no one would care whether an ordinary cultivator peed his pants or not!

But to his tearful surprise, he heard a cheerful response.

"Then hurry up."

…Eh? This… this great god's personality is different from his aura, and he seems to be quite easy to talk to?

After Tang Chen, who was weak all over, finished relieving himself, Su Zhou even generously let him sit on the toilet in the next stall before knocking him unconscious with spiritual power—this was the chivalrous spirit of a侠客 (xia ke, knight-errant)!

Immediately afterwards, Su Zhou once again interfered with the camera with lightning techniques, turned into a gust of wind, left the building, and sped towards the direction Tang Chen had told him.

At the same time.

Tangjia Village, a rather exquisitely decorated compound with two large stone statues guarding the gate.

The cold wind blew, causing the heavy snow to flicker in the lamplight. In the main hall of the main residence, the specially dimmed lights flickered.

In the rotation of light and shadow, it could be seen that there were more than a dozen coffins piled up in the corner of this seemingly ghastly hall, covered with talismans.

A total of eight figures dressed in deep blue Xuan Wen (mystic pattern) long robes were currently in the center of the hall. They were surrounding a corpse that was unusually thin due to hunger, but had been cleaned very cleanly. They were chanting incantations in low and eerie tones, and sprinkling spiritual water, seemingly worshipping something.

This corpse seemed to have been starved to death after a long period of hunger. There were strangulation marks on his hands, and his expression was terrifyingly twisted, as if he was still roaring and cursing before his death.

The three leading figures turned a blind eye to this, feeling nothing, and even had a sense of course and indifference. However, the other five younger cultivators had expressions of nervousness and disgust on their faces, as if their humanity had not yet been extinguished, and they had not yet adapted to this bizarre spellcasting and ‘materials’.

The sacrificers were led by the three leading figures, and the dominant one was a serious-looking middle-aged woman. Gray spiritual energy surrounded her, guiding the spiritual power of the other seven cultivators, transforming them into spiritual power talismans that submerged into the starved corpse. It could be vaguely seen that most of those talismans gathered in the abdomen after entering the corpse, causing its shriveled belly to gradually swell.

After a period of time, the three middle-aged leaders were fine, but the spiritual power in the bodies of the other five young cultivators was insufficient and they could not continue. The leading priestess then suspended the ceremony, sealed the evil corpse, and temporarily announced a rest.

After the five young cultivators retreated, the middle-aged man in his fifties among the leaders lit an e-cigarette. He took a puff and sighed: "Big sister, third uncle, is it really okay to join forces with those guys from 'Jiang Ling Hui' (Spirit Descent Society) to refine these 'hungry ghosts'? If the officials find out, the consequences… will be unimaginable."

"Unimaginable?"

The female priestess didn't speak, but another old man with white hair snorted coldly and scolded: "You're already in your fifties, and you're still so cautious… Don't you understand? Spiritual energy has revived! But even if spiritual energy has revived, our family's inheritance can only cultivate to 'Lingzhu' (Spirit Master) at most, which is the 'Transcendent' realm currently confirmed by the officials… And that still depends on luck!"

"And the Zheng Country officials alone can come up with more than thirty 'Tong Shen Zhi Lu' (Road to Godhood) and 'Deng Xian Zhi Dao' (Path to Immortality), and that's just the strength they're showing on the surface!"

Speaking of this, the corner of the old man's eye twitched, and he slapped the coffin irritably: "Before the spiritual energy revived, everyone was at the Awakening level. We were a little more law-abiding and not so arrogant, and the officials could tolerate us living in one city… But now, not to mention the Zhusheng (various Sages) who have probably already achieved the Transcendent level, in another half a year or so, as the spiritual energy resurgence intensifies, all the old professors and instructors in the major academies will be able to break through the peak of Awakening, or even Transcendent!"

"Do you think that when they can just send down an instructor who might be at the peak of Awakening, will the officials still tolerate cultivation families and local tycoons like us who have done some small tricks and want to be local emperors?"

"Third uncle is right." Nodding slightly to show her approval, the female priestess's voice was a little hoarse, but her tone was very forceful: "Moreover, we don't have the right to refuse them… The officials are a dragon, and large mysterious organizations with multinational presence such as 'Jiang Ling Hui' and 'Lian Dao Hui' (Prayer Society) are at least sea dragons. We earthworms and bugs can't refuse either side. The only options are to stretch our necks and be slaughtered, or to obey."

"What's more, they are willing to help us arrange a way out, allowing us to transfer our foundation and heritage to the central part of World Island. All we need to do is use the family's secret methods to refine some special hungry ghosts for them… Who is it?!"

Suddenly, outside the courtyard, the sound of激荡 (ji dang, surging) air breaking rang out! Without hesitation, the female priestess immediately got up. She picked up a bone-carved pistol wrapped with eight talisman ribbons from behind her, and shouted sternly to be on guard. The male priests on both sides also unhesitatingly picked up a copper mirror and a copper bell, two pieces of equipment. A circle of gloomy Yin Qi (Yin energy) shields floated around the three of them, vaguely forming a formation with the priestess!

However, their expressions immediately froze, stiffening in place.

Because along with the rapidly approaching whistling wind, along with the cracking and shattering walls and ceilings, the three could see that a giant stone lion statue weighing at least two or three tons was smashing towards them directly from the courtyard gate like a meteorite!

"嬲 (Niao)?!"