Starting with the titmouse, seventy-two transformations

Chapter 396 Deduction: Lanruo Temple, Nie Xiaoqian, and the Tree Demon Granny (Part 1)

"Not taking a single item? Didn't you find anything you liked?"

Du Xingwu stroked his long beard, almost tearing off a few strands, looking quite surprised.

Previously, the patriarch had instructed him to bring Liu Sheng to "touch" the treasures confiscated from the Chunyu family, and had agreed to let him choose ten items that caught his eye.

To everyone's surprise, this guy just went in, "touched around," and came out empty-handed.

"The foundation of the Chunyu family is ultimately inferior to that of the Du and Mo families; ordinary things are no longer pleasing to my eye."

Liu Sheng shook his head and sighed softly.

Chunyu Clan had only recently risen to power, and the items he collected were not of high value and would not be of much help to him at the moment. Taking them would only take up space in his storage bag, so it would be better not to take them.

Now, ordinary spiritual artifacts, some pills and talismans for those who have entered the Dao realm are no different from trash to him, and items for those who have reached the Yellow Court realm are useful but not many.

Those that catch his eye either have high stats (high rank) or novel mechanisms (special functions); otherwise, they can only be "touched" by him to plunder their spiritual energy.

Fortunately, Chunyu's collection brought him more than 500,000 points of spiritual energy, which was not bad.

In this way, his spiritual energy value has now exceeded two million, making him richer than ever before, enough to upgrade all five of his remaining avatars.

After exchanging a few more words with Du Xingwu, he left and returned to the small courtyard where he had stayed.

Next, it's time to deduce the ascended incarnation.

After meditating for a while in the quiet room, and having the demonic ape transform into a guardian spirit, Liu Sheng opened the panel, his gaze sweeping across until it landed on "Fire Crow":

"Deducing the transformation into a Fire Crow—"

……

In the first year, you struggled to break through the eggshell and let out a hoarse cry.

Your eyes are not yet open, but you can already feel the light.

You desperately need something, but you don't know how to express it, so you scream.

Until an insect was stuffed into his mouth...

The following year, you perched on a branch, making strange "quack quack" noises.

A year later, you have grown strong wings, sharp claws, and your wings are covered with rings of crimson fire patterns.

Your parent bird says you might have reverted to your ancestral bloodline and possess the potential to become a demon.

They say that after becoming a demon, not only does one's lifespan increase greatly, but one also gains all sorts of incredible supernatural powers, such as tearing tigers and leopards apart and spitting fire to burn things.

It is also said that the son of the cousin's daughter of the aunt of the neighbor's sister-in-law awakened his bloodline and reverted to his ancestral form, becoming a fire crow, which was very majestic.

You feel a longing and ask how majestic it is, but they stammer and hesitate to speak.

Throughout the year, your parents treated you exceptionally well, diligently searching for food and feeding you every day.

You eat your fill every day, but your younger siblings in the same nest are always hungry, squawking and making a lot of noise, which is very annoying.

You take advantage of your ability to eat well and grow quickly, and bully them every day. When the parent birds are out foraging, you constantly hit their beaks to shut them up.

One crow, in particular, dared to ask you for food, so you took special care of it and beat it even harder.

After a few times, it got scared. Even when it was very hungry, it didn't dare to bark. It just huddled by the nest, looking at you longingly, and only ate the leftovers after you had eaten and drunk your fill.

Sleeping, eating, and beating up his younger siblings every day—life was so comfortable.

So, a year later, you are bigger than your parent bird, with sharp claws and teeth, and are exceptionally handsome.

And your littermates, your siblings, not only did some die along the way, but the survivors were all thin and small, with dull and lackluster feathers.

So ugly!

You hate them, and even find a pair of parent birds somewhat of an eyesore.

You're always nagging about "becoming a demon," "fire crow," and "reversion to your ancestral nature," but all you ever find are fruits, insects, and rotten flesh—not nearly enough for you to eat!
This wretched place,
You don't want to stay even a day longer.

In the third year, driven by hunger, you beat up your useless parent birds and kicked over the crow brother who dared to stop you, finally flying away from the nest.

You're so hungry, if you don't leave soon, you might not be able to resist eating them.

You finally realize that foraging and hunting are not easy tasks.

Having parent birds to feed you is actually not bad.

But you don't want to turn back!

On the tenth day after leaving the nest, you finally got to eat meat.

A lion cub with its spine broken lay limply on the ground, staring blankly at the sky.

Its father died in battle, and its mother was being held down not far away by the lion that killed its father...

sowing.

You listen to its mother's screams, peck out its eyeballs, swallow them whole—they're wet and delicious.

Its heart and liver are so delicious, its flesh and blood so sweet...

It tastes so much better than insects or rotten meat.

Before long, a flock of annoying vultures swarmed over, a dark mass in large numbers. Enraged, you fought and struggled with them for the loot.

You fought with all your might and finally killed a vulture, but before you could even rejoice, the rest swarmed around you and devoured you.

【you are dead. 】

……

"No way, a crow going head-to-head with a flock of vultures? That's incredibly brave."

Liu Sheng's lips twitched, unsure of what to say.

This fire crow's personality is very unlikable; it is indifferent to its parents, siblings, and even its own life.

Perhaps it was because they were too well protected by their parents that they were so naive?
This is absolutely absurd!

Isn't he just a giant baby...?

Moreover, judging from previous deductions, it seems that the Fire Crow's ascension process is somewhat similar to that of the Sky-Splitting Sparrow. Did it awaken its bloodline by devouring spiritual objects and take the path of becoming a demon through a fortuitous encounter?
Fortunately, the spiritual energy lost in this simulation was minimal, only six points, which was a drop in the ocean for someone with over two million spiritual energy.

"Don't rush to conclusions. We still have time and plenty of spiritual energy. Let's give it another push."

His eyes flickered a few times, he calmed himself, and began to deduce again—

In the first year, you struggled to break through the eggshell, letting out a hoarse cry...

...

In the third year, you beat your parent bird and flew away from the nest.

Along the way, they found a lion cub with its spine bitten off...

Before long, a swarm of annoying vultures rushed over, a dark mass of them, too numerous to fight off, and you could only flee in disarray.

But that taste is something you can't forget.

You can no longer eat fruit, insects, or rotten flesh; you want to eat—

Live! Blood! Fresh! Flesh!

But you're just a crow. Even with fiery patterns on your wings, you're still just an ordinary bird. You can't hunt it down, you can't compete with it, unless...

Become a demon!

...

[In the eighth year, you roamed the wild for five years, and by sheer luck you survived. Your physique has grown stronger and stronger, no less than that of a peregrine falcon.]

In particular, the fire patterns on its body have spread all over its body. It is extremely fast, and when it flies, it is like a flash of fire across the sky. Its claws and teeth are sharp and can pierce through gold and stone, and hunt sheep and deer.

This was all thanks to a chance encounter with a fiery red fruit.

That time, you slept for several days and nights before waking up, then shed your feathers and underwent a complete transformation.

From then on, you discovered that you could see strange black lines on the foreheads of living beings. The darker the line, the shorter their lifespan and the faster they would die.

So you chase after those creatures with black lines on their foreheads, watching them die either from illness or violent death.

Then, in the instant they die, tear open their chests and abdomens and eat their most delicious hearts and livers.

Later, you learned about the black lines on the foreheads of those creatures...

It's called death energy.

When a deathly aura appears on the forehead of a living being, death is not far away.

Since then, you have never gone hungry again.

You often go back, but you always hide in the shadows, watching your aging parents and your clumsy younger siblings.

Especially that crow brother who asked you for food and got beaten the worst.

Watching it clumsily deal with predators, struggle to find food, and feed its parents, it lived a hard and noisy life, but ultimately survived.

You would secretly chase away those fierce eagles, falcons, snakes, and pythons, and occasionally throw them a piece of fresh flesh.

You don't know why you did it, and you don't want to think about it too much; you just did it anyway.

The most important thing about being a bird is to be happy.

When they have free time, the parent birds always perch on the branches, gazing southwards.

That is,

The direction you flew from the nest back then.

"This is so annoying, I'm never going back to that lousy place!" At times like this, you'd mutter irritably and flap your wings and fly away.

...

In the tenth year, you entered a human town.

After tasting human flesh, you feel that the flesh and blood of all other living beings are garbage.

You did not kill anyone, nor did you enjoy killing. You simply went to the vicinity of a dying person based on the deathly aura you saw, and waited until they died before eating their heart and liver.

Gradually, your reputation spread. You became known as a bringer of death, an ominous sign, and so on.

You are shrouded in infamy and are unpopular among humans.

You don't care, you just do whatever you want.

After all, many people die every day, coughing, spitting blood, oozing pus and sores, dying in bed wailing, and there's simply not enough food to feed them all.

You heard from some old men who call themselves "doctors" that a plague has broken out in the city.

What is a plague?

You don't know, you just feel that the hearts of the dead are softer, sweeter, and more delicious.

The internal organs of infected 70- or 80-year-old men were actually more tender and delicious than those of 10-year-old children who were not infected.

Those who haven't tried it won't believe it.

But that's the truth.

You yearn for the world to be afflicted with the plague, so that there will be an endless supply of fresh, dirty, and tender meat to eat.

How wonderful that would be!

In the eleventh year, the plague in the city became increasingly severe.

Every day, so many corpses are thrown out of the city; there are more than enough to eat, simply too many to consume.

More importantly, as you consume more and more of the hearts and livers of those infected, unusual activity arises within your body, and you vaguely sense a powerful force gradually reviving.

The fire patterns covering your body are becoming increasingly intricate and dazzling, and your feathers are gradually turning from black to red.

You recall what your parent bird once said and guess that this might be a bloodline awakening, a return to ancestral form and becoming a demon.

So he brought back a piece of the plague victim's heart and liver and gave it to his brother, the crow, to eat.

It refused to eat and kept whining.

This idiot!

In your anger, you beat it half to death and force it to eat it.

A few days later, it died with pus and sores all over its body.

You stand before its stinking corpse, silent, as memories of its life flash before your eyes—

It timidly begs for food from you, screams and cries when you beat it, and after you leave the nest, it tries hard to learn to fly, diligently searches for food, defends against predators, protects its younger siblings, and feeds its parents...

It took on the responsibilities that should have been yours, worked diligently for the family, but ultimately died because of you.

Although you never intended to harm it.

I only hope that, like you, it can strengthen itself by eating the hearts and lungs of those infected, and even awaken its bloodline, revert to its ancestral form as a demon, and no longer be bullied.

But it ultimately died because of you.

You stood silently before the corpse of your brother for three days and three nights, then devoured it.

From this day forward, we will never be apart again.

...

In the fourteenth year, you stopped on a high-rise building, overlooking a luxurious manor.

In the fourth year of the plague outbreak, the city's inhabitants suffered heavy casualties.

Nine out of ten houses were empty, and the ground was covered in white mourning clothes.

Rotting corpses can be seen everywhere in the streets and alleys, along the roadsides, and in the ditches.

The air was filled with a purulent, greenish-yellow stench of plague.

For other living beings, this is a dead end, a place of no return, but for you, it is a blessed land.

Your body is over ten feet long, with sharp claws and teeth, and your ferocity is comparable to that of an eagle.

Since your brother's death, you have become increasingly violent and extreme in your actions, devouring hearts and lungs, swallowing bones and tendons.

You need to prove to it that you didn't intentionally harm it. Devouring the flesh and blood of infected people can truly awaken one's bloodline and cause one to revert to an ancestral demon form.

It died because it was too weak.

In recent years, the plague has spread in the city. At first, the government coordinated efforts, conscripting able-bodied men and doctors to administer medicine, disinfect, and dispose of the plague-infected corpses.

However, wealthy merchants took advantage of the situation, raising prices and plundering the people to make a fortune.

They have the best doctors and the best medicines, and they've sealed off the inner city, isolating it from the outside world, so they're not afraid at all.

The poor, unable to afford food or medicine, could only wait to die at home if they contracted an epidemic.

The scene of separation by death, filled with wailing and lamentation, resembled a living hell.

Even you, you "hairy beast," know the principle that "if the skin is gone, where will the hair attach?"

Once the plague spreads in the city, even if they stay in the inner city, they will have no chance of escaping.

Those powerful and wealthy families are shrewd and selfish; how could they not know this?

There must be something to rely on!

You overheard someone and learned that there was a temple outside the city called Lanruo Temple.

The temple enshrines a tree bodhisattva, which is exceptionally efficacious, capable of relieving plagues and epidemics, and its branches and leaves can also resist the plague.

There are also secret passages leading out of the inner city. All the nobles and wealthy families who have been infected with the plague can leave the city through these secret passages and go to Nalanruo Temple.

Offering gold and silver, or donating sesame oil, can ward off disasters and misfortunes.

Once the plague subsides, refugees will come to rent land, multiply, increase the population, and accumulate wealth.

As they come and go, the poor become poorer and the rich become richer; though living in the same city, they seem to be in two different worlds.

Even this city-wide plague might...

You remain silent, feeling that human nature is unpredictable, more treacherous than wild beasts and ferocious birds, and that it would be best to devour it all.

What do you care about wealth or poverty, family or country, morality?

You're just a beast that loves to eat the liver and bladder of infected people...

brute!】

...

In the seventeenth year, the epidemic intensified in the city and spread to the inner city.

It is said that the tree bodhisattva in Lanruo Temple was nearing its end, its magical power was gradually waning, and it was no longer as effective at eliminating plagues as before.

So, you had the privilege of tasting the heart and liver of a wealthy person who died from the pandemic.

Tender, delicious, smooth and sweet, much better than what poor people eat!

Living environment shapes one's temperament, and upbringing shapes one's physique; those school teachers were right.

Chaos gradually descended upon the city, and more and more powerful and wealthy people died from the plague.

The arrow they shot that day struck them squarely between the eyebrows eight years later.

Both the inner and outer city walls became your paradise for dining.

One day, after you finished eating, you suddenly felt a burning sensation inside and out, a pain that pierced to your very bones.

You had a sudden inspiration and realized it was the awakening of your bloodline, so you flew back.

Before those aging and dying parents...

Atavism, becoming a demon!
Fifteen years away from the nest, that's the safest place in your heart.

The blazing flames surge from your body, unignitable to touch but burning upon contact, transforming you completely and cleansing your very marrow.

But the nest, the younger siblings, and the two elderly parent birds were all reduced to ashes in the flames.

You scream and howl in pain, but you can't move and can only watch helplessly as it all unfolds...

Back then, when you pressed the birds about how powerful their relative's son was after becoming a demon, they always hesitated and remained silent, which annoyed you.

original,

This magnificent sight is a nest reduced to ashes, and the parent birds turned to ash!
original,

They knew it all along, yet they went ahead anyway!

And you...

It took flight with a flap of its wings, like a streak of fire breaking through the sky.

It has finally become a demon.

But the taste of becoming a demon is more bitter than gall jasmine, and more painful than being burned alive—

You have no home anymore.

(End of this chapter)