For several days in a row, Fengyun Wuyi remained still, his gaze vacant, staring at the drifting and sinking skeletons. Mo Li was not surprised; he knew that, like all those before him, the newcomer was simply overwhelmed by this harsh reality.
Days passed, and for ten days straight, Fengyun Wuyi did not move. Mo Li sighed inwardly, lying in the corner of the cell. He thought, "The next time we extract Qi, there are still twenty days to go. Let him enjoy this peace for now." A cold wind echoed through the underground water prison, causing Mo Li to tighten his cloak, momentarily lost in thought. It felt as though the days of his past, filled with ambition and pride, had suddenly come flooding back to him.
The next day, Fengyun Wuyi awoke. As soon as he opened his eyes, his first words were, "Senior, does that thing—" he pointed to the Demon God statue, "—absorb Qi according to a proportional scale based on the amount of Qi?"
Mo Li was taken aback. He hadn't expected him to be pondering this, but he nodded in acknowledgment.
Fengyun Wuyi nodded back, then leaned against the wall and fell silent. For the first time, Mo Li found the young man oddly mysterious—no one knew what he was truly thinking.
By the third day, Fengyun Wuyi's aura had significantly weakened. On the fourth day, it was noticeably weaker still. As the days passed, his presence seemed to fade. By the sixth day, his aura had nearly diminished to the point of being almost indistinguishable from Mo Li's.
"What are you doing?" Mo Li finally asked, unable to hold back.
"I've compressed all the Qi in my body into a mass and sealed it within my dantian," Fengyun Wuyi replied.
"It won't help. You're just delaying the inevitable. You're only pushing back the time until you've exhausted all your Qi."
Fengyun Wuyi smiled faintly in response. For the past few days, he had been reflecting on the fact that a world would reject beings from another. The best approach, he realized, was either to completely overcome this rejection or to assimilate with the world. The former was clearly impossible; the rejection force would grow stronger with the size of the foreign power within. As such, the only viable path was assimilation.
Step one was to shrink his energy, which he had done. The external pressure seemed unchanged, but Fengyun Wuyi knew that was only because his body had weakened without the support of Qi.
Fortunately, his consciousness wasn't directly tied to Qi. Fengyun Wuyi sat next to Mo Li, allowing his awareness to reach the third stage of the "Intent Sword Body Technique." His consciousness extended outward in a radiating pattern, unaffected by the world's rejection.
His awareness gradually grew murky, and the next moment, he felt himself transform into a formless energy that enveloped a vast space. Everything within it was exposed before him, every detail visible.
In the top corners of the prison, strands of different-colored energy flowed like a dense web. In between the walls, strange green symbols, as small as ants, lined the surfaces. Fengyun Wuyi couldn't decipher their meaning. Extending further, he noticed the faint energy signatures, some stronger, some weaker, marked like points on an ancient map. Some consciousnesses were sweeping around, but none of them were as strong as his. In fact, they seemed significantly weaker.
Fengyun Wuyi had intended to make contact with them but decided against it. Instead, his awareness moved toward a bend in the water prison's corridor, where a demon guard stood by a torch.
This demon had a bull's head, a pig's body, goat legs, and horse hooves, with a pig's tail. It carried a bronze trident and wore a brass ring through its nose, its body covered in dense black fur.
Fengyun Wuyi's consciousness pierced through the demon's body. Suddenly, the demon's eyes widened, and its body froze in place. Fengyun Wuyi, having no qualms about the demon's existence, eradicated its consciousness completely.
The corridor was eerily quiet, and no one noticed the demon leaning against the wall, now an unconscious shell of its former self. Fengyun Wuyi's awareness quickly scanned the demon's body, its internal organs, and meridians, especially the demonic energy within.
Without a doubt, the demon's physiology differed from that of a human. Its meridians were more resilient, more robust, and its body's recovery rate was formidable. Still, the fundamental structure wasn't vastly different.
The most notable feature of the Demon Realm was the dense demonic energy. Fengyun Wuyi realized that the demonic energy here was akin to that of high-level demons, but far stronger in both quality and quantity compared to the energy he had encountered in the ancient realms.
In the distance, the sound of footsteps approached. Fengyun Wuyi swiftly withdrew his awareness, retreating like a receding tide, bringing with him a portion of the demonic energy he had extracted from the lower-level demon.
For several more days, Fengyun Wuyi shut off his senses and carefully studied the demonic energy inside his body. The demon's death was likely considered an unfortunate accident, drawing no attention.
Though Fengyun Wuyi tried his best to preserve the energy, it rapidly dissipated.
Once again, in his conscious form, he exited his cell and repeated the process, killing another low-level demon and acquiring another portion of demonic energy. Over the course of several days, Fengyun Wuyi had killed about twenty such demons, collecting over twenty portions of demonic energy. This was enough for him to begin understanding its properties.
On the twenty-seventh day after entering the underground water prison, a faint wisp of black demonic energy leaked from Fengyun Wuyi's body. Mo Li, who had been indifferent up until now, suddenly opened his eyes, his face changing as he fixed his gaze on the faint trace of demonic energy emanating from Fengyun Wuyi.
"Another aberrant," Mo Li murmured after a long pause. This was the first thing Fengyun Wuyi heard upon waking.
Opening his eyes, Fengyun Wuyi looked at Mo Li, his gaze sharp and bright.