The King of Curses

Chapter 92 Obsessed
The pattern that Cen Dongsheng visualized in his mind finally stopped at "monkey" among the tens of millions of monster images.

Mandrills are indeed similar to apes, both in appearance and habits. The largest monkey in the real world is called mandrill in China... Is it because of this?
It may also be that his subconscious desires for certain powers, and these desires are manifested in the form of apes.

Or maybe it's both.

Let’s not think about this for now. Cen Dongsheng has now finished refining the mandrill Yin Qi. The surging True Qi in his body has grown several times stronger and merged into the image of the ape visualized in his mind, making it gradually become more solid and clear...

This process lasted for a long time. When the visualization process ended, Cen Dongsheng seemed to feel something and suddenly opened his eyes.

Suddenly, the narrow tent seemed to become spacious in the blink of an eye, and a tall, strong, muscular monkey with a pair of long arms hanging below his knees stood in front of him.

Similar in color to the tiger demon, its hide was pitch black, like an ink painting, its dense hair was dotted with silvery-white spots, its outline seemed illusory, except for its pair of pupils, which shone like real gold refined by fire.

It bared its teeth, had a ferocious look on its face, and its tail was wagging. It looked like it couldn't calm down. It scratched its head for a while, then pounced towards Cen Dongsheng fiercely.

"...!"

The power of the ape demon merged into his body.

The visual image changed again:

Below the towering black shadow, in addition to the tiger with wings on its back, there is also a majestic and strong ape, like a statue;
At the same time, the shadow above had become more solid, and the outline of the face could be vaguely seen...

……

"call."

Cen Dongsheng closed his eyes and his intense heartbeat gradually subsided.

Along with the long breath, two streams of white smoke spewed out from the nose.

The visualized image slowly disappeared from his mind. Having successfully acquired the power of the ape demon, he began to look inward to check the flow of his true Qi.

A strange and abundant energy was sweeping through his body, transforming his already strong and sturdy body.

This is the characteristic that allows the human-immortal curse to be enhanced.

However, although they are all whole-body enhancements, they correspond to the nature of different "demons" in a mysterious way, and the focus of this transformation process is also different.

Compared to the tiger demon's power which is mainly concentrated in the skeleton, the forging of the ape demon's power is mainly targeted at the muscle fascia under the skin.

The strong physique and developed muscles he originally possessed were more like additional effects of the "Immortal Bone" ability and the strengthening of true Qi, but the changes brought about by the Ape Demon this time were really aimed at enhancing this part.

With every rotation of the Ape Demon's power, the quality and toughness of every muscle fiber it flows through is visibly enhanced, constantly rotating between relaxation and tightening until it reaches the state of being tempered a thousand times.

Even without opening his eyes, Cen Dongsheng could still clearly feel that he had grown a few inches taller, and a hot current was flowing through every corner of his body.

Now, he truly possesses "steel bars" and "iron bones", and is invulnerable to swords and guns. In the past, bullets from hunting rifles could still cause wounds on his body, but now they will probably only be stuck in the surface muscles, without even bleeding.

"Becoming more resilient and stronger...it seems like I really have to keep moving forward on this path and never look back."

He checked his body again.

Unlike the activation of "Immortal Bones" which requires proficiency, due to the foundation laid by the power of the Tiger Demon, he had already realized the existence of the first level of supernatural power right after absorbing the power of the Ape Demon.

"'Muscles are like one'? That's interesting."

After all, Cen Dongsheng was a curse master who was reborn eight years later. He had made up for his lessons when he was working in the Governing Bureau, and his knowledge in traditional fields had not fallen behind much.

He had heard of this word, which was mentioned in the opening chapter of Huangdi Neijing, The Theory of Ancient Innocence:
"Huangdi said: I heard that in ancient times there were real people who could hold up the heaven and earth, grasp yin and yang, breathe in the essence, be independent and guard their spirits, and their muscles were as one. Therefore, they could live as long as the heaven and earth and have no end. This is their way of life..."

If we understand it literally, it should still be about changes on the physical level.

But the specific effect of this ape demon power will have to be tried again after meditation is over before it can be mastered.

The matter of superpowers is not over after awakening, especially the human-immortal curses, which require training and even fighting to gradually master the skills and exert their full effect.

It took a week to get used to the power of the tiger demon for the first time, and he only comprehended the first level of supernatural power, "Immortal Bones", after fighting dozens of rounds with the evil spirit transformed by the curse master.

"By the way, if the essence of this curse is 'adaptation', and it reflects the inner characteristics and needs of the holder, then does that mean that my deepest wish is to be a reckless man..."

The corner of Cen Dongsheng's mouth twitched slightly.

...Is this a misunderstanding?

However, thinking about it carefully, after the three fights with the scorched corpse evil spirit, the vine monster, and the mandrill, every time at the end, he would become too excited and throw words like "calm" to the back of his mind, completely immersed in the battle.

One could even say that he was enjoying the fight, the excitement of the process, and the thrill of going all out to win.

Before his rebirth, he lacked the ability and had no chance. Now that he has the ability to rush forward, he might really choose to rush forward to the end.

Sometimes, the forbidden power that reflects the inner desires and aspirations can better reflect the true thoughts of the curse master than what he says.

“This is the real me…”

……

Cen Dongsheng collected his thoughts and planned to end this meditation.

Before I knew it, several hours had passed. It was still dark before dawn.

Cen Dongsheng was full of energy. The excitement of gaining new strength blew away the worries in his heart for a moment, and he didn't feel tired at all.

He planned to go out and practice some boxing to stretch his muscles according to his past training habits.

After the warm-up, try the new skills, and this process can continue until the morning, and then leave with your companions...

While thinking, Cen Dongsheng opened his eyes and was about to stand up, but at this moment -

"……Uh?"

He was originally sitting in cross-legged position, but halfway through, his body fell back down.

Wait, my body is so stiff...

If it was an ordinary person maintaining a posture for too long, it would be understandable that his muscles would become stiff, but his body is almost superhuman, so this is impossible.

"…This situation is…"

Cen Dongsheng frowned, cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and he quickly closed his eyes again and turned on the "inner vision". This time he found that the true qi surging all over his body was abnormal, and the surging heat flow did not run smoothly in the meridians like before, but instead seemed to have turned into magma, burning and fierce, colliding with the body from the inside out.

The internal circulation that originally ran smoothly without the need for concentration became restless at this moment. As soon as he relaxed his mind, he showed signs of losing control.

Cen Dongsheng immersed himself in the world again, concentrating his mind on controlling the violent true Qi, trying to calm it down.

While adjusting my breathing, I thought about the cause of this abnormal situation.

When the true Qi is integrated with a person's spiritual will, this special energy can transcend the limitations of the body. When it flows through the body of the spell-caster, it swings between two sides of the balance: one is internal, the other is external; one is yin, the other is yang.

This process is the mutual conversion of "weak breathing" and "strong breathing" - or "gentle fire" and "strong fire", which gives birth to powerful force and is the mystery of the operation of true Qi.

However, in some cases, excessively strong true Qi cannot be controlled and may instead become like fire taking on the power of wind, running wildly in the body and seriously damaging the functioning of the Qi in the internal organs. This is called "fire wandering".
In terms of the mind, abnormal inner scenes often appear, producing hallucinations. In the eyes of ancient practitioners, this phenomenon is the arrival of the Yin demon to test one’s mind. If one’s mind is not firm, one will be attached to the inner scenes, and delusions, fantasies, and crazy mental states will emerge. This is when one is “possessed by the demon.”

The combination of the two is the most severe situation that may occur during meditation practice.

"Going astray".

The most serious consequence would be that the curse master would lose his humanity and human form, and would transform himself into a kind of "demon", the so-called "human-demon", which is extremely dangerous.

Fortunately, the man still has some understanding of this abnormal situation. The systematic knowledge he has learned in the future allows him to know the safest response strategy in this situation.

In fact, "going astray" is relatively rare for a less radical curse master like Cen Dongsheng, but it is not completely unheard of.

For example, if you are too anxious or uneasy - in short, if you are in a state of emotional ups and downs and try to force yourself to meditate, you may encounter this problem.

"The current situation is just a 'misfire'. As long as you adjust your breathing and let the true qi return to normal circulation, it can be solved..."

Just as Cen Dongsheng was following the instructions and trying to restore his body to normalcy——

A large number of images emerged in my mind uncontrollably again. They were the countless images of demons that I had seen before, rotating endlessly and changing in a myriad of ways.

I clearly didn’t have any visualization, this, this is…

Cen Dongsheng was stunned for a moment.

After hundreds of thousands of demons passed by, the last picture emerged on its own, without being controlled by his thoughts, and firmly grasped his mind.

It was the dark shadow that he had seen more than once, a symbol of himself.

Under the shadow, the tiger demon remained motionless like a sculpture, but the image of the ape demon had changed:

There was a fierce light in its pupils, and its originally motionless body was shaking, as if it was unwilling to accept this suppressed form.

Along with the ape demon's unusual movements, a sense of restlessness spread, making Cen Dongsheng feel inexplicably irritated.

All the unpleasant experiences in the past and recent troubles came to his mind, presenting a tangled state. He just wanted to give up all his efforts at the moment and go out for a run to vent his feelings.

However, if he fails to control the violent true Qi with his mind in time, he will miss the best opportunity to recover. Not only will his strength decline, but he may also damage his own foundation.

Cen Dongsheng's brain was hot. He knew something was wrong, but he couldn't calm down.

Under the influence of this restlessness, he saw that even the "Tiger Demon" next to him was affected -

"Not good..."

He knew that both his body and mind were being tested, and the situation was heading towards the most dangerous situation, like a wild horse running wild.

It was not until this moment that Cen Dongsheng realized so clearly how dangerous the special curse that resided in his body was.

Its principle is to absorb external demons into the body, rely on the holder's own body and mind to suppress and subdue them, and transform them into one's own power.

Perhaps it was because he had drawn the power of the first tiger demon from a past cultivator, and after so much time had passed, the remaining power was already weak, and the demonic nature was dispersed, so this situation did not occur...

Until he personally tried to allow an alien demon to enter his body.

To contain the power of the "devil" into one's own body is an extremely dangerous act;
Death due to losing control of power or falling into the devil's way is the second most common unnatural cause of death for curse masters, besides death in battle. Coexisting with dangerous power is a proposition that every curse master needs to study throughout his life...

Calculated in this way, due to the particularity of his own spell, Cen Dongsheng's probability of losing control is likely to be several times that of other spell masters.

In his mind, the monkey in the picture became more and more vivid, and at one point it seemed to be about to break free from the picture. The restlessness had permeated the painting itself.

A word suddenly emerged in Cen Dongsheng's mind: "Monkey heart".

As the saying goes, "the mind is restless and the thoughts are running wild", it means that the mind is not focused and is changeable during cultivation, which is the source of one's going astray.

"The riot of the true qi was also affected by this restlessness..."

Am I too impatient?
But if he hadn't had this experience, the bomb buried in his body by the curse might not be discovered until later, and then the explosion would only be bigger.

The danger of special forbidden spells always coexists with its power.

Cen Dongsheng sighed slightly.

At times like this, there seems to be no other way except to do our best.

Fortunately, he was not alone.

While trying his best to calm down and delay the arrival of "going astray", he opened his bloodshot eyes and forced himself to mobilize his true energy. He exhaled with a "Ha!" and the blowing wind made the whole tent rustle.

The sound of two people being awakened was heard nearby, and An Zhizhen and Yi Qingyan arrived in front of the tent almost at the same time.

When he saw them appear, Cen Dongsheng felt a little relieved, and his vision began to blur.

He saw the woman reaching out her hand to him, and felt the cold, soft touch on his hot face; he heard the girl calling out to him worriedly.

"Dongsheng...Brother...I..."

He couldn't hear clearly what Qingyan said.

"I, I'm fine..."

Cen Dongsheng murmured something, then gathered all his thoughts, no longer paying attention to anything outside, and completely sinking his restless thoughts into the lake of his heart.

(End of this chapter)