553: Chapter 554 Holy crap, the system!

The more Lu Ming thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong, and he couldn't help but knit his brows, his heart filled with suspicion and uncertainty.

Was there truly someone scheming behind this matter? And if so, what was their purpose?

Was it to have him expose the matter? Or was there some other scheme afoot?

Lu Ming did not know.

Therefore, he checked the karma golden book at the first opportunity.

But to his disappointment, the golden book was silent, with no new names updated on the list.

This either meant he was worrying needlessly and no one was scheming against him at all.

Or it meant that the person was already on the list, but it just wouldn't display extra information.

For the first time, Lu Ming felt that the golden book might not be as omnipotent as he thought.

So much so that he now had no idea whether he was fighting shadows in the Void Realm, battling the air, or if he had already been schemed against without realizing it.

However, he leaned more towards the second possibility.

Because his journey so far had been too smooth.

From the martial arts of the Great Qian to the Divine Court, how much Origin of Luck had he collected along the way?

Those True Monarchs were not idiots; even if they were happy to see someone share the Karma of destroying the Dao for them, wouldn't they feel suspicious seeing him harvest so recklessly?

Wouldn't they be curious about the secrets behind it? Wouldn't they be curious about which Fellow Daoist was doing this?

Actually, being schemed against was one thing; the Cultivation World was full of deceit.

But what Lu Ming worried about most was that this matter would not just target this Incarnation, which could be discarded at any time, but that his True Self would be implicated and affected.

"I got too arrogant after all." Lu Ming muttered to himself.

If there was any single flaw that could expose his identity in the whole affair, it was Great Elder Lu Chenyuan going to the Southern Wilderness Region.

There was actually no problem with this matter itself; only a very small number of people knew about Great Elder Lu Chenyuan leaving the Qingwei Grotto-Heaven.

But the problem was that he hadn't restrained himself at all in the Southern Wilderness Region.

Many people saw that mysterious powerhouse who tore through the Void Realm to descend and then crushed a Golden Core True Person like an ant.

They knew that a powerful dragon had crossed the river into the Southern Wilderness Region.

Consequently, if someone with intent were to trace back along the route where Lu Ming had seized the Origin of Luck, it wouldn't be difficult to lock onto the Southern Wilderness Region.

By then, they could follow the clues to find Zhou Yang and the others; they wouldn't even need to search their souls, a simple divination would reveal the entire sequence of events.

Although Great Elder Lu Chenyuan hadn't exposed too much, the identity of True Lord Qingxu was likely to be exposed because of this minor matter.

"Sigh, after breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage, I ultimately became a bit complacent." Lu Ming sighed.

He hadn't been like this in the past; he would always clean up his tracks when doing anything, leaving not a shred of a clue for others.

How could he be like he was now, leaving such a huge hidden danger for himself outside?

However, it was fortunate that he had discovered it early; saving the situation now shouldn't be too much of a problem.

After all, even if someone were to trace back, the time cost would not be so easily managed.

Moreover, there were currently only two True Monarchs on the list: True Monarch Yuji Sitian of the Yujing Dao Court and the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord [Qin Guan].

Although True Monarch Yuji Sitian had endured too much unwarranted "retribution" during this time, Lu Ming, following the principle of doubting even his own doubts, did not immediately rule him out and still listed him as a suspect.

However, logically, if someone really had their eyes on him, it was most likely the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord.

"Why is it this old bastard again!" Lu Ming couldn't help but curse.

His grudges with the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord were too numerous to recount.

However, if it really was this guy, it must be because he had touched the other party's interests first, which led to him being targeted.

Lu Ming began to recall those realms he had traveled through, and which of the strange, Demonic Path-leaning Legacies were similar to the Soul Devouring Demonic Sect.

Or, to put it more directly, which ones were the work of the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord?

For example, that "Strange Realm," where the people practiced curses, black magic, and Gu poison, feeding on resentment and using fear as sustenance.

And that "Corpse Soul Realm," where corpse refining, Soul Refining, and Puppet creation were all commonplace.

These realms were more or less vaguely similar to the methods of the Soul Devouring Demonic Sect.

If he had seized the Origin of Luck from these specific realms, which led to being targeted by the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord, then it made sense.

And this way, there was still enough time, because these encounters were relatively later on.

Thinking of this, Lu Ming hesitated no longer.

His Divine Thought was suddenly withdrawn, and his consciousness returned to his True Self.

Immediately, Lu Ming's True Self, located within the Qingwei Grotto-Heaven, suddenly opened his eyes.

In his pupils, a light of Chaos flickered on and off.

Then, without any other movement, he simply raised his hand and slowly reached out toward the Void Realm.

In an instant, the Void Realm before him rippled like water.

Lu Ming's arm submerged into it, as if crossing billions of miles to reach toward that distant Southern Wilderness Region.

At the same time, the sky of the Southern Wilderness Region suddenly darkened.

A massive hand that blotted out the sun and sky emerged from the Void Realm.

The palm spanned across the horizon, its five fingers like pillars supporting the heavens, and the fingerprints on the palm were like mountains and rivers, covering the entire Southern Wilderness Region.

In an instant, all living beings in the Southern Wilderness Region looked up, their eyes filled with extreme terror.

"That… what is that?!"

Then the next thought was, Run! Run quickly!

However, as soon as they had this thought, they discovered that their bodies were no longer under their control.

Everyone froze in place, as if someone had pressed a pause button, and in the end, even their thoughts stopped.

Immediately after, that massive hand slowly closed over the Southern Wilderness Region, like a Five-Finger Mountain falling from the Nine Heavens, slowly clenching shut.

There was no roar, no vibration, and no damage caused to the Southern Wilderness Region.

But with that grasp, the traces of Karma left behind by Great Elder Lu Chenyuan were wiped clean.

From Mortals to Cultivators, from spiritual treasures to dust, all auras, memories, and Karma were extracted and crushed in that single grasp, dissipating into nothingness.

It was as if this person had never stepped foot in the Southern Wilderness Region.

And after completing all this, the giant hand covering the entire Southern Wilderness Region slowly dissipated.

And when this hand dissipated, all the living beings in the Southern Wilderness Region regained their freedom.

However, their eyes were dazed and empty, as if they didn't understand why they had been staring blankly just a moment ago.

After a long while, they returned to normal, but they simply continued with their own affairs, clearly having forgotten what had just happened.

However, what no one noticed was that along with the giant hand, Zhou Yang, Dong Pingan, and Zhang Li had also disappeared.

Even the Tianxing Immortal Sect Disciples and Elders who had good personal relationships with them seemed to have completely forgotten their existence.

Lu Ming had taken them directly from the Southern Wilderness Region, and naturally, it wasn't because he had nothing better to do.

According to his original plan, he had intended to let them live peacefully in the Southern Wilderness Region.

After all, their talent was just so-so; rather than putting them in a place like the Qingwei Grotto-Heaven where everyone was competing fiercely, it was better to leave them in their homeland to become local kings.

With his resource subsidies, living a carefree life for the rest of their days could also be considered a form of Perfection.

But now, Lu Ming had changed his mind.

This group of people had deep karmic entanglements with him; although even if they were captured and searched for their souls, or even if their Karma was divined, not much about his True Self could be calculated.

But it would ultimately cause him a certain amount of trouble.

Since that was the case, such hidden dangers naturally had to be strangled in the cradle.

However, Lu Ming was not a person who killed wantonly; although his moral bottom line was very flexible, he would not casually attack old acquaintances.

However, rather than letting them remain outside and become a hidden danger, it was better to bring them into the Qingwei Grotto-Heaven and keep them under his own nose.

This way, he could both protect their safety and keep the hidden danger within a certain range.

It was just that he had no intention of seeing these few people.

This was not to say that Lu Ming looked down on old friends after becoming a Nascent Soul True Monarch.

It was simply that the gap between the two sides was too large; there was nothing to talk about, and they couldn't converse on the same level.

As for reminiscing about the past, that was even less necessary!

If he were ten thousand years old, occasionally reminiscing about the past or mourning his lost youth might be understandable.

But he was only two hundred years old; among Nascent Soul True Monarchs, this age could only be considered an embryo, so what was there to reminisce about?

Therefore, with just a sweep of his thoughts, he made reasonable arrangements.

First, he whitewashed the identities of Zhou Yang and the others, fabricating a set of unwarranted karmic memories to cover them.

Now, whether it was the Disciples and Elders of the Qingwei Dao Sect or Zhou Yang and the others, they would all believe that they had originally been born and raised in the Qingwei Grotto-Heaven.

Perhaps one day when their cultivation broke through to the Nascent Soul stage, they might notice that their Karma was wrong, and subsequently awaken their sealed past wisdom to understand the sequence of events.

But by the time they reached that point, Lu Ming estimated that he would have long since ascended to become an Immortal.

Then all the Karma in the Lower Realm would no longer be a hidden danger to him.

And after completing all this, Lu Ming withdrew his gaze and did not pay attention to this matter anymore.

Since the hidden danger had been eliminated, he needed to refocus his energy on the Divine Court.

Lu Ming didn't care whether he was fighting shadows or not; he would just shoot the arrow first and then draw the target, assuming he was being targeted by the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord.

And if the other party had their eyes on him, then the Divine Court would naturally fall into their view as well.

And the things that he could understand, an old ghost like the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord who had lived for tens of thousands of years would naturally be able to understand the schemes behind them.

However, even though Lu Ming didn't know much about these True Monarchs, he knew they didn't get along.

Therefore, the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord might not interfere at all, but rather be happy to see [True Monarch Chiyan Yinglei] screw over the Yujing Dao Court, weaken [True Monarch Yuji Sitian], and let the Righteous Path Alliance fall into endless internal fighting.

And what role was he playing in all of this?

Lu Ming couldn't figure it out, and couldn't be bothered to think about it, but in all likelihood, he was of some use to the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord.

Perhaps because of this, the other party might even help out at a critical moment!

If that were really the case, it would actually save Lu Ming trouble.

After all, he intended to develop rapidly within the Divine Court, which would inevitably not escape the eyes of [True Monarch Chiyan Yinglei].

But if his True Self were to provide cover, it might expose his own existence, which would be telling on himself.

Now with the Soul-Devouring Demon Lord, a guy who was secretly trying to stir up trouble, he didn't need to worry about these things.

However, this was all just Lu Ming's wishful thinking.

But to verify this guess, it was actually very simple.

That was to do something relatively eye-catching, well, in other words, be an attention seeker.

For example, jump four ranks in official position, straight into the "Heavenly Official" sequence in one day!

However, doing this was also quite risky; if he guessed wrong, then this Incarnation would likely be gone.

But Lu Ming felt it was very necessary to give it a try.

He originally didn't want to waste time in the Divine Court; rapid promotion had been his original plan, it was just accelerated this time because of a hypothesis.

But if his guess was successful, then Lu Ming could loosen his hands and feet to do some things.

"Since that's the case, then let's begin!"

Taking out the token given by Patrol Envoy Zhang, Lu Ming lightly wiped his fingertip across the token and silently recited the incantation to trigger it in his heart.

The token trembled slightly, and a wisp of pure Power Of Faith surged out from it, like a warm stream, entering his body along his fingertip.

As soon as that wisp of Power Of Faith entered his body, it was absorbed by the "supreme red text water virtue spirit official talisman" inside him.

The Talisman trembled slightly, and a pale golden light screen appeared out of thin air before Lu Ming's eyes.

The light screen floated three feet in front of him, semi-transparent, with fine runes flowing along its edges.

On it, lines of text appeared one after another.

[Name: Wang Chan]

[Official Position: supreme red text water virtue spirit official talisman · Ninth Rank]

[Power Of Faith: Ten Years (Available)]

[Heavenly Treasure Treasury: Click to enter, can jump to page]

Lu Ming looked at the light screen, a strange expression flashing in his eyes.

"Holy crap, where did this bring me!"

Not to mention, this thing really looked a bit like a System interface.

It seemed this was the incidental function of the official Talisman!

Lu Ming looked at the panel, feeling curious, and tried reaching out to gently tap the light screen.

Uh, useless.

So with a shift of his mind, the four characters "Heavenly Treasure Treasury" suddenly lit up slightly, and the image on the light screen switched accordingly.

Oh~ so this is how it works!

Lu Ming figured out the operation of this panel and then began to browse.

As the new page unfolded, lines of items were arranged neatly.

Like the TB he used in his previous life, every item was marked with a clear name, grade, and price.

Lu Ming scanned it casually and saw a long string of dazzling things.

There was "Soul-Calming Incense" that could nourish the Divine Soul, a "Spirit Rain Banner" that could amplify the power of controlling clouds and rain, a "Water Mirror Disk" that could sense the movement of water veins, and "Gathering Divine Pill" that could briefly increase Divine Path cultivation.

There were also various rare spiritual materials, Magical Artifacts, rune diagrams, and even some incomplete Divine Path Cultivation Techniques, all priced quite high.

But what truly made him stop was the entry listed separately at the very top of the page.

[Official Position Promotion · One-Click Upgrade]

Lu Ming clicked on that entry, and a new interface popped up on the light screen.

It displayed the complete path for Spirit Official promotion with a clear hierarchical relationship.

Divine Officials were divided into five ranks, namely Spirit Official, True Official, Dark Official, Yuan Official, and Heavenly Official.

And within each rank, there were nine grades.

Among them, the Ninth Grade was the lowest, and the First Grade was the highest.

Taking him as an example, Lu Ming was currently a Ninth Grade Spirit Official; if he wanted to be promoted to True Official, he needed to first reach this First Grade, and only when the First Grade reached Perfection could he be promoted to the next rank of official position.

If he were to normally condense Power Of Faith to Cultivate, it might take several years.

But if he spent money directly, it could be done in an instant!