Long Chen coughed up a mouthful of blood while sitting at the cliffside. That blood contained many broken bits of his internal organs.

He didn’t even remember how many times this had happened now. The evil dragon race’s Swallow the Heavens, Devour the Earth divine ability was too difficult to train in.

According to Evilmoon, he needed to condense eighty-one divine runes inside his stomach. These runes were things he had never seen before, and each of them possessed great destructive power. An explosion from one of them could shatter a mountain.

Fortunately, Long Chen’s physical body was strong enough. He had these runes slowly plaster themselves to the lining of his stomach. That was no problem.

Unfortunately, when he activated the runes, his stomach would instantly explode. If it was anyone else, they’d have long since turned to dust. However, he was still heavily injured each time.

If it weren’t for the support of the World Trees, Long Chen would have long since given up. This was not a technique for a human.

“It seems you really won’t be able to learn it. After all, it’s a divine ability of my dark evil dragon race. Although you possess dragon blood, you don’t possess dark energy. Just relying on brute force to condense the formation is essentially impossible,” said Evilmoon after Long Chen failed multiple times. It truly did seem a bit crazy for a human to cultivate a divine ability of the evil dragon race.

Long Chen didn’t reply. He was constantly attempting to form the formation, but whenever it formed, it would explode violently, and there was no way for his stomach to bear that power.

“Ah, I’m so stupid!” Long Chen suddenly clapped his leg. He waved his hand, and Lei Long appeared before him. After that, he formed hand seals, and divine runes began to form in the air.

“What are you doing?” asked Evilmoon.

Long Chen didn’t reply. He continued forming hand seals, and eighty-one divine runes quickly formed in the air.

“It’s useless. When these runes are gathered together, without dark energy as a mediator, they’ll immediately explode,” said Evilmoon.

Ignoring Evilmoon’s advice, Long Chen had Lei Long devour those divine runes at the exact instant that they gathered together.

“For now, I won’t create the formation. I’ll have Lei Long use its destructive power to reduce the power of these runes until they only have a trace of their power. That way, when I absorb them into my body and condense the formation, their power won’t be so great, and my body will be able to handle it,” said Long Chen.

“That’s one option. But even if you can pull it off, such a weak formation will be useless. Ninety-nine percent of its effectiveness will be lost.”

“There’s no way around it. These runes come from my soul, so after condensing the formation, I can nourish them with my soul. Right now, they’re too berserk and refuse to listen. I’ll need to weaken them and try again.”

Bang!

At this moment, an explosive sound came from Lei Long’s mouth. Lei Long opened its mouth, and Long Chen was speechless. The divine runes had been destroyed already.

Lei Long transformed into a foot-long dragon that wrapped around Long Chen’s wrist, gently rubbing his arm with its head.

“It’s fine. It’s not your fault. We have no experience. We just have to try a few more times,” comforted Long Chen.

Due to not controlling its thunderforce perfectly while suppressing the divine runes, Lei Long had caused the divine runes to explode. This process was very difficult to pull off, especially toward the end. As the power of the divine runes weakened, Lei Long also needed to weaken its own power, or if their power was unbalanced, it would cause the runes to be destroyed again.

From the start, Long Chen hadn’t expected to succeed in one try. With his bad luck, he never hoped to succeed that easily.

As expected, his experience was accurate. He failed seven times in a row, but he wasn’t shaken at all. He persevered until Lei Long slowly opened its mouth, revealing a ball of eighty-one dim divine runes.

Long Chen sighed with relief. He had finally succeeded. However, this was just one of the steps. He still had no assurance in really learning the divine ability.

The divine runes, which had been shining brightly and releasing shocking divine power, were now dim. Long Chen cautiously swallowed the ball of runes and didn’t immediately start once they were in his stomach. It was only after an incense stick’s worth of time that he sent his Spiritual Strength into them to slowly paste them onto the lining of his stomach.

“I’ve done everything I can. Whether or not this is possible will be seen now.” Long Chen clenched his teeth, and his Spiritual Strength spread through the divine runes, linking them into a formation.

The divine runes lit up, and his internal organs trembled. The eighty-one divine runes split up and covered all his internal organs.

They were fracturing over and over, one to two, two to four, four to eight… Countless divine runes filled his insides.

“What… what’s going on?” Evilmoon was shocked.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” demanded Long Chen.

“I get it. Because you don’t have the body of an evil dragon, there’s been a mutation in the Swallow the Heavens, Devour the Earth divine ability… or perhaps… no, nothing.” Evilmoon suddenly shut its mouth.

It had been about to say that the mutation was because of Long Chen’s cultivation technique. However, it was impossible to say anything for sure, so it decided not to randomly guess.

The runes inside Long Chen’s body were swimming around his organs. They weren’t under his control at all and quickly wrapped around his organs.

Suddenly, Long Chen's body began to wither. This sudden change made Long Chen jump in fright. He felt like the energy inside his organs had been sucked dry.

Just as he was shocked and didn’t know what was going on, endless life energy flowed out of the primal chaos space and poured into his organs.

The runes lit up once more, greedily devouring the life energy. The dim runes began to shine even brighter.

“Are they parasitic?” Long Chen shivered. He felt like these divine runes were more like leeches, sucking away his energy.

“No, they’re not like that. These divine runes were condensed by you, and they’ll work for you. This mutation in Swallow the Heavens, Devour the Earth has surpassed my understanding. However, I’m sure that the strengthening of the divine runes in your body is a good thing. It will make your internal organs even stronger. You’ll also be able to use even more power,” said Evilmoon.

“There’s such a thing?” Long Chen was startled.

“Of course. Both humans and beasts have weak insides. That’s why they have their physical body to protect them. While it looks like you are able to unleash one hundred percent of your power, you really are only capable of releasing eighty percent of it. Perhaps you don’t even know that. The reason is that if you did unleash one hundred percent of your power, even before you attacked your opponent, your internal organs would be crushed. That’s why you instinctively only use as much energy as your internal organs can bear. But now that they’re strengthening, the amount of power you can unleash will also increase. Even your defensive strength will increase. This is definitely a good thing,” said Evilmoon.

The runes in Long Chen’s body grew brighter, but he found that these runes seemed to have merged together with his organs. As they absorbed more life energy, they constantly strengthened.

After two hours, Long Chen’s internal organs were clear, and it was possible to see countless runes revolving within. They had formed a powerful formation.

“Long Chen, the Swallow the Heavens, Devour the Earth divine ability has undergone a huge mutation within you. I’d guess that your devouring power is ten times greater than my evil dragon race. Do you want me to transmit a secret art to you? You won’t even need to fight any longer. As long as you find someone displeasing to the eye, you can devour them in one gulp,” said Evilmoon, a bit moved by this change.

It had to be known that Swallow the Heavens, Devour the Earth was a unique divine ability of the evil dragon race. It was used to digest the flesh of experts to quickly strengthen themselves.

Evilmoon had not expected it to undergo such a huge change when Long Chen used it. It had actually formed an absolutely terrifying divine formation. Using it to just devour medicinal pills was an absolute waste, as it could be used to defeat enemies easily.

“Eat people?”

Long Chen immediately felt a wave of nausea, especially when he thought of the enemies he would devour. There would be old ones, fat ones, people who hadn’t bathed in eight hundred years… Long Chen instantly made his decision.

“No, I won’t learn it. Spare me.” Long Chen shook his head like a rattle. He wouldn’t do such a thing even if he was beaten to death.

Evilmoon tried to convince him a bit more. Whatever he devoured into his stomach would be ground down by the formation and instantly absorbed. There wouldn’t be any taste.

Before Evilmoon even finished speaking, Long Chen vomited. Seeing that, Evilmoon kept its mouth shut and gave up on that thought.

The strengthening of Long Chen’s organs continued for a full day. Finally, the divine runes stopped shining, and his organs returned to their normal state. But he could sense the huge change.

Just as Evilmoon had said, the strengthening of his organs had resulted in his power increasing once more.

“Hehe, let’s test the results.”

Long Chen took out a jug of wine with crushed medicinal pills mixed into it. He opened his mouth and gulped the wine down with the medicinal pills.