Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

The next morning.

Yan Yu got up, washed up, and went downstairs to sit on the living room sofa, only to see Lin Ning preparing breakfast in the kitchen.

The sweltering heat of August was bearing down, with temperatures already in the 30s early in the morning. Because of this, Sister Lin was wearing only a tank top and denim shorts, with a kitchen apron tied in front to shield from the oil splatter, revealing large patches of her fair and healthy skin on her shoulders, arms, thighs, and lower back.

Yeah, summer is great!

On the gas stove, a pot was boiling with wonton noodles, a frying pan contained fish cakes, and in the rice cooker was a simmering porridge, next to which stood a buzzing soy milk machine. Lin Ning was preparing breakfast for five people all by herself, yet her movements were orderly and efficient.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Yan Yu watching her, and turned to say,

"Breakfast will be ready soon; go call them down to eat."

"Let the little alarm clock do it," Yan Yu said.

"Who's the little alarm clock?" Lin Ning asked.

"You."

"Give it a rest," Lin Ning sighed with resignation, responding with Yan Yu's catchphrase.

A moment later, Su Yunjin also came downstairs.

She went to the sofa, neatly stacked a few books that were lying in disarray on the coffee table, and then heard Lin Ning shout,

"Yun Jin! Help me call the others down for breakfast. The captain refuses to do it, the meanie."

"Okay," Su Yunjin replied and then winked at Yan Yu.

Yan Yu didn't understand what she meant by that, so he simply winked back in the same way.

Fortunately, Su Yunjin didn't respond; otherwise, the two of them would have started communicating in eyelid Morse code.

But...

I somehow feel that today's Su Yunjin seems more approachable than before?

Ha ha ha, it's not like she's an animal; what does 'more approachable' mean? It's just that our relationship has grown closer, that's all.

The third person to come down was unsurprisingly Zhao Yuanzhen, the gluttonous Devil Emperor from the Demonic Sect. As soon as she came down the stairs, she tiptoed to the kitchen, trying to sneak a bite of the fish cakes Lin Ning was frying in the pan.

But Lin Ning, a woman on the path of the Sword Immortal, was always alert and had quick reflexes. How could she let Zhao Yuanzhen succeed? In an instant, she flicked her hand with a whoosh and slapped away the stealthy claw.

Zhao Yuanzhen sheepishly withdrew her hand and turned to see Yan Yu sitting on the sofa, trying to hold back his laughter. She couldn't help but feel secretly annoyed and mentally took note:

"Today this thief saw me fail to steal a fish cake and even mocked me. I'll remember this grudge! When the day comes that I seize power and assume control, I will definitely tie this little thief up in front of food, so he knows the pain of being able to look but not eat!"

Thinking this, she quickly cheered up and sat down next to Yan Yu.

As for Chen Lingyun, although she usually carried herself with grace and poise, she had a severe case of morning grumpiness, dragging her heels until Su Yunjin finally called her down.

Everyone gathered around the dining table for breakfast, and afterward, they took a chartered vehicle to the academy for classes.

The morning was still devoted to theory lessons, which aren't worth mentioning. The afternoon, however, was reserved for training classes, where the students would follow the instructors to learn. Yan Yu's Team naturally followed their captain to the back mountain's exclusive training field to practice.

"Southern Dipper covers the sky, command the stars to form a river!"

With a delicate shout from Su Yunjin, as her True Yuan coursed through her meridians and surged, the waters of the celestial river also manifested in the air.

"It's still too much," Yan Yu suddenly said.

"Should I compress it more?" Su Yunjin immediately stopped circulating her spiritual energy, and the impending waters of the Heavenly River also vanished instantly.

"Compress it again. Otherwise, your True Yuan won't last," Yan Yu advised, "The secret art mentions this point, right?"

Su Yunjin fell into contemplation, recalling the annotations of the "Southern Dipper Galaxy Secret Art" she had memorized in the quiet room days ago.

The annotator was named "Chen Mingyan," who seemed to be the lady in green from Dragon Spring Mountain's Mysterious Realm encountered in the past.

At the beginning of the classic, she mentioned that if the original "Southern Dipper Galaxy Secret Art" were executed, it would instantly result in vast expanses of water, overwhelming and boundless, so there was no need for any finesse—just flood the enemy with the waters of the Heavenly River to finish the job.

However, as the concentration of spiritual energy in the world was continuously declining, by the Age of Dharma Decline in the future, practitioners would inevitably face the issue of True Yuan sustainability.

Therefore, she meticulously dissected and recompiled the method, turning the "Southern Dipper Galaxy Secret Art" from merely a brute-force summoning of rivers and floods to attack the enemy, which also caused the True Yuan to drain away wildly like a raging river, into a series of more skillful and tactically valuable moves.

For instance, the first move "Jiaochong" mimics a flood dragon spitting water from the river, summoning pillars of Heavenly River water around the enemy and rapidly gushing vast floods in a specified direction, sweeping the enemy into its deluge.

The annotator explained in the classic that if you attack the enemy directly, they may easily dodge using immortal steps; but if you use the sudden rush of the Heavenly River's water to inundate them, causing them to roll helplessly underwater, losing their sense of direction, then it's easy to decapitate them with a Flying Sword.

What's most commendable is that the consumption of True Yuan is only slightly more than that of the Three Arts and Five Spells.

But Su Yunjin had been practicing for a long time and still couldn't control her True Yuan output well. Using it a bit too much caused the diameter of the Jiaochong to be much larger than recorded in the classic, which actually reduced the impact force.

She needed to train her control of True Yuan, Su Yunjin resolved firmly to herself.

After inspecting Su Yunjin's progress, Yan Yu went to practice with Lin Ning.

As she now had no sword techniques at her disposal, Ningning couldn't practice the basics alone and had to rely on Yan Yu to feed her moves.

After sparring with Lin Ning to the point of exhaustion, Yan Yu put away the Huang Tingjian and then went to find Chen Lingyun and Zhao Yuanzhen.

Zhao Yuanzhen didn't need to worry; after all, her combat experience was there, and she was naturally more adept at fighting than others. As the concentration of environmental spiritual energy gradually increased, her strength was bound to return slowly.

Chen Lingyun's situation was more complicated. She was set on the path of controlling ghosts and had now obtained both the Soul Summoning Banner and the Heart Capturing Technique—yet she lacked suitable spirits to refine and control.

There were two ways to acquire ghosts:

One was to improvise—the capture and killing of people, and after killing them, shaking the Soul Summoning Banner to absorb their living souls, offer sacrifices and torment them until they turned into ferocious and brutal evil spirits.

But there were many problems with this approach. First, the concentration of ordinary human souls was insufficient for battle, making them easily perishable, and each death greatly weakened the soul force, requiring long-term nurturing within the Soul Summoning Banner; secondly, there was the issue of modern social perceptions.

Even if she were to collect the souls of executed criminals, any exposure would still tarnish her reputation.

The other method was to visit ancient battlefields and seek out long-dead yin soldiers and ghost warriors—the earlier they died, the more formidable the lingering ghost soldiers would be.

Given the historical shifts in the population center of Lu Country, the most formidable ghost soldiers were mainly concentrated in the northern provinces of Xichuan and Sanjin, followed by Jibei, Central Plains, Jingbei, and Qilu provinces.

However, these provinces were within the defense areas of other military forces; as for the Zhendong Military Defense Area's jurisdiction over five provinces and one prefecture, what they had in abundance was not spirits, but monsters.

Seeing Chen Lingyun staring at the Soul Summoning Banner for a long time without making sense of it, Yan Yu couldn't help but say,

"Stop looking. If it really comes to it, we can just take a trip to an ancient battlefield, see if we can find anything overlooked."

"Find overlooked items?" Chen Lingyun asked with a gleeful smile, "Are there still unclaimed wandering spirits and lost ghosts in today's ancient battlefields?"

"There's a high probability of none," Yan Yu answered frankly, "Famous ancient battlefields usually have their corresponding secret battle realms, and the powerful ghosts are in those realms."

"Then why do you want me to look for overlooked items?" Chen Lingyun's smile grew sweeter.

"I just want to see the look of disappointment on your face when you run around and find nothing," Yan Yu replied with a smile.