“Legacy disciples?”

Su Zimo frowned – this was the first time he had heard of that title.

Little fatty nodded his head. “Actually, every sect has legacy disciples. They are the prodigies that are highly valued and groomed by the sects. Some sects call them as core disciples.”

Understanding, Su Zimo asked, “You mean to say that Feng Haoyu is a legacy disciple?”

“Not yet.”

Little fatty replied, “But, he’s almost certain to be one once he promotes to become an inner sect disciple. That’s because he’s already begun to cultivate one of the three major secret skills, Ethereal Sword. I heard it was because my master went to persuade the sect master personally.”

When he heard that, Su Zimo’s expression turned grim.

The fact that he had the rights to cultivate the three major secret skills before becoming a legacy disciple was enough to tell how much the sect valued him.

For the secret skill to be deemed as the support of one of the five main sects, it was definitely nothing to scoff at.

But of course, to Su Zimo, the factor that determined the victor wasn’t on Feng Haoyu, but himself.

Outside the spirit arena of Spirit Peak, the moment he laid his hands on Sun Tao, he discovered that he had a hidden ailment within his body.

If he did not remove this hidden ailment, the fight against Feng Haoyu at the end of the year would not be favorable for him.

Little fatty went silent for a moment before chuckling. “But bro, since you made this choice, I’ll still be on your side. It doesn’t matter if you’re forbidden from Spirit Peak. I’ll spar with you from time to time during these six months to raise your fighting power and help you familiarize with duel techniques.

“Alright,” Su Zimo nodded.

“It’s just that we’ll be a little tight on time. After all, you’ve got to raise your cultivation and learn about refining weapons and elixirs at the same time… no matter what, we’ll just do what we can and hope for the best!”

After little fatty left, Su Zimo brought the spirit tiger with him back to the cave abode.

Sitting on his stone bed, Su Zimo’s eyes no longer concealed his worries.

If this was before he had cultivated the Marrow Cleansing section, Su Zimo was absolutely confident that he would be able to take down Feng Haoyu with just the horrifying might of his physical body and melee strength.

But now, there were some logical yet unexpected changes in his body ever since he started cultivating the Marrow Cleansing section.

Marrow Cleansing implied the swapping of blood.

Even though the new blood was extremely strong, it contained obvious signs of its demonic nature!

Back on Spirit Peak, Su Zimo’s killing intent rose upon seeing his spirit tiger get injured. Subconsciously, that activated his blood and veins and he felt his body showing signs of demonic conversion!

This was a feeling he had experienced back when he activated the Sanguine Ape Transformation.

Heaving a deep breath of air, Su Zimo channeled his blood, causing a tremendous aura to surge forth from his veins into every part of his body.

He could clearly feel his body expanding and strengthening!

The expansion was even more obvious than his flesh being filled and his tendons tightening!

This was a complete transformation!

His clothes were torn apart by his body, turning into shreds.

Even though he could not see his own appearance, Su Zimo knew that he definitely did not look like the refined scholar he was right now.

At the side, the spirit tiger glared uneasily.

It wasn’t just because it felt foreign towards Su Zimo’s appearance, the aura Su Zimo was emitting was chilling and horrifying!

Lowering his head, Su Zimo caught sight of his left hand’s fingernails growing out, jade white and sharp as blades. Merely making contact with them gave off the sound of metal clashing!

With a single thought, those frightening nails retracted.

The spirit tiger was entirely stumped.

Su Zimo’s palms were no different from its own palms where it could retract and release its claws at any time.

Green veins popped up and lined all over Su Zimo’s arms, thick like pythons coiling around in a frightening manner.

How could this be the arm of a human?!

Using spirit qi, Su Zimo conjured a water mirror.

Through the shimmering light, he caught sight of a half human half demon appearance. With bloodshot eyes, it was like a mix of an ape and human.

His arm trembled and the water mirror disappeared.

His entire body was almost transformed save for his right hand that retained its appearance. Fair and tender with long nails, it looked like any other human’s.

His right hand had always been somewhat strange.

Su Zimo had started realizing it back when it could create a Level 3 Spirit Fire.

However, he did not know the exact reason why.

Heaving a deep breath of air, Su Zimo’s blood began to calm down as his demonic appearance faded too.

This was the consequences of demonic cultivation.

The effects were not so obvious in terms of Tendons Transformation, Body Tempering and Bones Strengthening.

However, now that he was swapping blood through Marrow Cleansing, Su Zimo was showing signs of truly turning to a demon!

This was not what he wanted.

No matter what, he was a human and did not wish to become a true demon.

He had yet to cultivate the Marrow Cleansing to an initial success yet. But once that was done, or if he had achieved phenomenal success, his blood may undergo endless changes and he may never be able to revert to his current appearance.

He could almost imagine the consequences of him failing to control himself earlier on at Spirit Peak and revealing his demonic state.

First, he might be killed on the spot.

Second, he might be forced into a blood oath to become someone’s spirit beast.

If Su Zimo had revealed his demonic appearance, no one would take him as a human.

The only way demons could survive in the cultivation world was by becoming the spirit beasts of cultivators.

It was either that or he would have to leave the sect and live within mountains and forests from now on, mixing around with true spirit beasts while cutting off all ties with his family and kin.

That was something Su Zimo could not do.

Yet, he was not willing to give up on demonic cultivation as well.

“What should I do?”

He was lost.

Naturally, the greatest challenge to Su Zimo right now was the fight against Feng Haoyu at the end of the year.

Right now, he had no way of controlling his blood and if his blood churned while he engaged in melee combat, he was definitely going to reveal his demonic nature!

By then, many seniors of the sect in the audience would take him down before Feng Haoyu could.

If he wanted to win Feng Haoyu, he could only rely on immortality cultivation methods, making use of fighting techniques between Qi Refinement Warriors.

However, he was almost blank in that department since he had never practiced for it.

There were still six months till the end of the year face-off.

Raising his cultivation, refining elixirs and weapons while mastering sword wielding and fighting techniques between Qi Refinement Warriors…

Su Zimo made up his mind to pause on the Marrow Cleansing section.

It wasn’t just because he did not have time. More than that, he did not dare to carry on.

At least, the only thing he could do was to stop his demonic cultivation before he found a way to stop his hidden ailment.

Retrieving the Weapon Tripod from his storage bag, Su Zimo began to work on the step of spirit gathering.

He had a hunch that he would be able to figure out the technique to spirit gathering soon. That was the most important step in weapon refinement!