To quickly shake off the psychological pressure from the Black Demon Ding, Mo Fan sneaked into the spring pool again that night, continuing to lure the dragon loaches.
With the experience of his previous two attempts, he became increasingly adept at trapping them.
Although the benefits of evolved dragon loaches were greater, Mo Fan clearly couldn’t wait that long. He needed to boost his cultivation quickly to ensure he had enough self-preservation ability in potential future conflicts.
At the same time, he began studying the Body Detachment Technique taught by the Bull Demon Dali.
According to Dali, the essence of the Body Detachment Technique was to use demonic arts to detach a part of one’s body, then channel and nurture it with demonic energy, transforming it into a weapon akin to a magical treasure, also known as a demon weapon.
For example, the Dog Demon Laifu’s canine fang daggers and Bull Demon Dali’s pair of horns were both demon weapons.
However, Mo Fan was troubled because, after much thought, he couldn’t identify any part of his body suitable as a weapon.
After all, his true form was just a toad, soft and squishy all over, with nothing but his tongue and venom glands remotely viable as offensive tools.
“Could I only use the Body Detachment Technique on my tongue to turn it into a demon weapon?”
Mo Fan muttered to himself, but the thought of that scene was almost too vivid. If he used his tongue as a demon weapon, he’d become mute.
If the demon weapon were damaged in a fight with another demon, wouldn’t he be mute for life?
At this thought, Mo Fan quickly shook his head, dismissing the idea outright.
In the end, he turned his attention to his venom glands.
But his venom glands were internal, not easily detachable, and the venom sacs on his skin were too dense and irregularly shaped to serve as a demon weapon.
“The tongue won’t do, nor will the venom glands or sacs. So… what about the venom itself?”
A spark of inspiration hit Mo Fan, and he thought, “If I could turn all my venom into a demon weapon, wouldn’t I be able to freely control it to attack?
That way, if that Scorpion Demon comes to extract my venom again, could I turn the tables and strike back?”
The idea thrilled Mo Fan, and the more he considered it, the more feasible it seemed.
But while the idea was appealing, executing it was far from easy.
His surface venom was too abundant and dispersed, existing in liquid form, making it impossible to imprint with demonic energy as one would with a solid object.
Yet, the greater the challenge, the more Mo Fan believed his idea was right.
In his view, the harder something was, the more powerful it must be.
Without delay, Mo Fan glanced at the pile of spirit stones before him, noticing no dragon loaches had arrived yet. He decided to use his biological instincts to expel venom from a sac on his back.
Instantly, a milky-white liquid sprayed from his back.
Before it could hit the ground, Mo Fan quickly exhaled a burst of demonic energy to envelop it.
Then he began performing the Body Detachment Technique.
The core of the technique lay in the words “body detachment,” but it required detaching without truly separating. Mo Fan needed to imprint his unique demonic energy mark on the chosen object, allowing him to control it like an extension of himself.
As long as the demonic energy mark remained, he could recall the detached object to his body, where it would still be part of him.
The demonic energy mark was essentially a runic imprint, formed by arranging demonic energy through the incantations of the Body Detachment Technique, engraved onto the detached object.
Once imprinted, even if lost, others couldn’t use it. However, a demon with higher cultivation could erase the mark, though it would take considerable time and demonic energy.
Thus, demon weapons were almost exclusive to their demon owners. With continuous nurturing through demonic energy and essence blood, these weapons could evolve into natal demon weapons.
Natal demon weapons were far more powerful than ordinary ones but had a flaw: they were tied to their owner’s fate, thriving or falling together.
The Body Detachment Technique wasn’t difficult, and soon Mo Fan engraved his demonic energy mark on the venom strand.
But when he tried controlling it with his mind, only a tiny droplet, the size of a grain of rice, detached from the nail-sized venom blob.
This result left Mo Fan stunned.
“Damn, this is my demon weapon?”
Mo Fan’s face twitched, finding it almost unbelievable. After calming down, he realized this was likely due to the venom’s liquid nature.
Being liquid, it was hard to fully transform the entire blob into a demon weapon.
“If I keep imprinting demonic energy marks, could I turn all my venom into a demon weapon?”
Pondering this, Mo Fan began repeatedly applying the Body Detachment Technique, engraving marks on the venom before him.
To his delight, he found he could continue imprinting, and when a second venom droplet weapon appeared, it instantly merged with the first, forming a slightly larger venom bead.
The imprinting process lasted the entire night.
When the nail-sized venom blob was finally fully transformed into his demon weapon, Mo Fan glumly realized that nine-tenths of his demonic energy had been depleted.
“Each imprint reduces my demonic energy, permanently embedding it in the demon weapon. If I were to turn all my venom into a demon weapon, how much demonic energy would that cost?”
Mo Fan frowned, then gave a wry smile. His idea seemed overly ambitious, no wonder he’d never heard of a demon using liquid as a demon weapon.
But as he felt the nail-sized venom blob morphing and dancing around his fingertip under his mental control, Mo Fan’s resolve strengthened.
“So what if it consumes demonic energy? If I could turn all my venom into a demon weapon, I could poison someone to death in a fight!”
With this thought, he looked at the pile of spirit stones, now swarming with hundreds of dragon loaches that had gathered overnight, frantically devouring the stones.
Mo Fan’s heart stirred. The milky-white “venom bead” floating in his palm stretched into a thin needle, piercing through the spring water and into one of the dragon loaches.
Instantly, the loach convulsed wildly, then went still.
With a gesture, Mo Fan recalled the milky-white liquid from the loach’s body, reforming it into a white venom bead, which merged back into a venom sac on his back, becoming part of him again.
Examining the poisoned loach with his demonic energy, Mo Fan found no physical injuries, only that its pupils were dilated more than typical for a dead loach.
This meant the loach wasn’t poisoned to death—it was scared to death!
“Right, the Scorpion Demon mentioned my venom is a mental toxin. So it’s a kind of neurotoxin?
It doesn’t directly affect the body…”
Mo Fan murmured, quickly grasping the key, which excited him even more.
In his view, a toxin that attacked the mind was far superior to one that merely harmed the body—it was like killing invisibly!
Realizing the venom’s power, Mo Fan opened his mouth and sucked fiercely at the massive group of dragon loaches on the spirit stone pile.
Divine ability, Heaven Devouring!
In an instant, hundreds of loaches were swallowed whole.
At the same time, a surge of spiritual energy flooded his body, enough for his third demon transformation!
Feeling the spiritual energy coursing through him, Mo Fan didn’t hesitate. He directed it straight to his chest.
Rumble—
A sound like wind and thunder echoed within him, followed by intense pain spreading from his chest through his torso, as if every muscle and bone was being torn apart and reshaped.
“Ah—!!”
The excruciating pain made Mo Fan scream in the spring pool, but it soon subsided.
With a thought, his ugly toad form shimmered in demonic energy, revealing a fairly robust spiritual body.
His third demon transformation was a success!
