Rise of The Demon General

In the end, Nao Dou and Nao Xin granted Amon his freedom. He could leave the room and roam around the village. He used the chance to observe this place.

While he had the responsibility to collect intel to prepare for the lower world’s invasion, he didn’t let this issue rush him. Whether he ended up in this village after crossing Mo Wang’s rift was a blessing or a curse was still to be seen, but he couldn’t deny that he had stumbled into something special.

From what he observed, every inhabitant in this village possessed the same ability as Nao Dou and Nao Xin. What they possessed was an ability different from cultivation. This ability was not the result of a special constitution, and according to the two elders he conversed with, it could be trained. This meant it could be learned. He was very interested in learning it.

He figured this ability was the mental power Li Shi once mentioned when he was still a student in the Royal Academy. He remembered she told him that people once practiced mental power, but the technique had been lost to time.

From the conversation with Nao Dou and Nao Xin, he figured the reason for this technique’s disappearance was none other than the Divine himself. The villagers here were remnants of the practitioners of the mental technique, who had been hunted down and finally forced to hide in this village.

He estimated that if he wanted to, he could overpower these villagers and flee this place because he had a force that countered these villagers’ ability: battle puppets. Battle puppets had no brains. Hence, they were not affected by mental assaults.

Even so, he didn’t know the extent of their mental power. He couldn’t be sure he was safe even if he hid behind his army of battle puppets. Hence, until he better understood their ability, he decided to lie low and observe.

Whether his captives granted him freedom within the village was out of kindness or overconfidence, he didn’t know, but he would make full use of it. He conversed with all the villagers he met and memorized everything. He made the conversation sound like small talk. He spread out the important queries among different individuals.

He knew that while he tried to gain information from the villagers, they also did the same. They tried to read his mind. But like Nao Dou and Nao Xin, they couldn’t hear anything but his immediate thoughts. There was one instance when he felt a prick in his brain while conversing. This happened when he talked with someone named Nao Thu. He remembered Nao Dou and Nao Xin mentioned that Nao Thu was the best mind reader in the village. Perhaps the pricking was a sign of the man’s attempt to read his mind. He didn’t know whether Nao Thu was successful or not in doing it. He couldn’t read the man’s expression. He tried his best to avoid Nao Thu from then on.

After several days, he had gathered a decent amount of intelligence. As he suspected, everyone in the village had mental power similar to Nao Dou, Nao Xin, and Nao Thu. However, their power seemed to differ from one to the other. Their mental power also wasn’t limited to mind-reading and hallucination-inducing. He had seen a few villagers move things without touching them. He didn’t sense any application of art at the time, so it was safe to assume that the mental power provided some of them with the power of telekinesis.

He counted that this village had ninety-six inhabitants. There were two more who were traveling outside the village. Among the two was the grand elder, whom Nao Dou and Nao Xin were waiting for before deciding on his fate.

Some of the more talkative villagers told him that there used to be more people. At its height, the village had more than two hundred inhabitants, but that was thousands of years ago. When he asked them the reason for the decline, the villagers were mum about it. He didn’t push the subject. He wanted them to think he asked these questions out of curiosity and not for interrogation.

For some reason, everyone in this village had the same surname, but Amon was sure the villagers were mostly unrelated to one another. The reason was that he noticed differences in their physical traits. They couldn’t share the same ancestor unless, of course, that ancestor went all the way back to the origin of this world. He casually brushed over the topic during his conversations, but the villagers declined to shed light on the issue.

One particular thing he found odd about the villagers was that there were no children. There were plenty of old people, but the youngest villagers he had seen appeared to be in their late twenties.

From what he could perceive, he had a feeling that the villagers were as much prisoners of this place as he was. He noticed a kind of longing in their eyes when they looked in the direction away from the village. Some even wandered off into the border, which was covered by thick mists, only to return soon after.

Out of curiosity, he entered the mist. The wall of mist marking the village border looked like the lower world’s misty border. However, he knew it was different once he entered it. The mist completely disappeared after he passed through. What was before him were woods with tightly arranged trees.

He tried to fly up above the trees. But when he did, he experienced vertigo once he passed the canopies and soon found himself plunging headfirst into the ground. It was as if the sky flipped with the ground as soon as he flew past the canopies.

He stopped trying to fly up and walked around the woods. The scenery never changed. The only things aside from the trees were several patches of mist walls spread here and there. After some time, he decided to enter one of these mist walls, only to find himself back in the village.

The illusion created by the formation protecting the village was powerful. He couldn’t sense any anomaly when he walked in there. He wasn’t confident that he could break the formation if he tried. He left that problem for later. He had yet to satisfy his interest in the villagers of this secluded village.

*

After more than a week, Amon identified two individuals whom he believed he could manipulate. The two looked like someone in their forties. There were others with younger looks than the two, but he had the impression that these two were the youngest among the villagers. He didn’t know the reason for that impression, but he believed his hunch.

The two were a male and a female. Their names were Nao Pei and Nao Mei, respectively. He befriended them with repeated conversations. The two were hesitant at first. They were unaccustomed to talking to a stranger, which was understandable considering their situation, but Amon was devilishly persuasive. He could adjust himself to fit any character type, making them feel comfortable, especially those with less social experience, which were these two.

Slowly, the two grew to accept Amon as a friend.

”You wish to learn our mental power?” Nao Pei asked. He was playing with a cluster of rocks. He had them fly around using his mind, and occasionally form a letter or a drawing with them. From Amon’s observation, his telekinetic ability was among the best in this village.

”No way the elders will let you,” Nao Mei said. ”Our technique is forbidden to be taught to outsiders. That is our village’s rules.”

”Plus, you won’t be able to learn it with your cultivation level, or at least you won’t get far,” Nao Pei added.

”What do you mean?” Amon asked. ”What does my cultivation level have to do with learning this mental power? Wait... Is that why you all have low cultivation levels despite this world’s rich aether contents?”

Nao Pei nodded. ”When your cultivation level surpasses the Martial Realm, your Sea of Consciousness will no longer grow, no matter how much you train it.”

”The reverse is true,” Nao Mei added. ”Once your Sea of Consciousness goes past the second tier, your energy core’s growth will decrease significantly, and you can never go past the Martial Realm.”

”Mm... In other words, you must choose between developing your Sea of Consciousness or your energy core. You can’t have both,” Amon surmised. It was similar to how a normal cultivator must choose between divine and infernal cultivation paths.

Nao Pei and Nao Mei nodded.

Despite the news, Amon wasn’t willing to give up. ”In that case, you won’t violate the village’s rules even if you teach me. I won’t be able to learn it anyway, so there is no harm. I’m curious. Can’t you do me a favor and teach me?”

Nao Pei and Nao Mei looked at each other. Their expressions showed uncertainty, which Amon considered a good sign. A bad sign would be to refuse him outright. He only needed to push them slowly.

”I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Nao Mei said. ”We will be scolded if the elders find out.”

”Well, we can’t teach him, but I think it is okay to introduce him to our mental powers’ categories,” Nao Pei said.