The deeper one ventured into the secret realm, the stronger and more dangerous the Demon Beasts became.
Human cultivators began joining forces.
Even if it meant fewer resources for each of them, safety mattered more.
"I sensed something here......."
"Could you have been mistaken?"
"I was not. There was definitely a decent spirit creature here."
They had reacted to the auras of the spirit herbs and spirit trees in this place.
"Fellow Cultivator Kang must be right. His sect's magical artifact is reasonably trustworthy."
Another cultivator beside him spoke in support of the man called Fellow Cultivator Kang.
"Then are you saying the spirit creature sprouted legs and ran away?"
"It is possible."
Spirit creatures did not refer only to spirit herbs.
They could also be beasts like the White Deer.
Or stones such as Water Essences and Fire Essences.
If it was a beast like the White Deer, it could have fled.
"Or someone else might have taken it first."
The man who had supported Fellow Cultivator Kang spoke.
"See? I told you we should hurry over."
"A Demon Beast might have been guarding the spirit creature. We needed to gather enough people."
The disappearance of the spirit creature sparked a petty argument among them.
"Wait a moment. I can sense demonic aura underground."
"Demonic aura?"
When the three focused, they could sense the slime's aura.
"It seems to be a fairly powerful Demon Beast."
"How do you propose we hunt it?"
They fell into thought for a moment.
"Does anyone have a magical artifact for digging through earth?"
Eighty meters underground was quite deep.
It was equivalent to twenty-five floors below ground.
Without a magical artifact, it would not be easy to dig that far down.
"I do not have such a magical artifact, but I can use a spell to dig underground. However......."
The cultivator trailed off.
"However what?"
"We do not know whether the creature will wait for us that long."
Any Demon Beast that lived underground would naturally know how to dig tunnels.
The creature lived twenty-five floors beneath the ground.
While the cultivator dug downward, it would flee somewhere else.
Then they would have wasted their time and effort.
"Let us simply go elsewhere."
They did not have much time to remain inside the secret realm.
Time continued to pass even as they stood there.
"I will use my magical artifact to find another spirit creature."
Fellow Cultivator Kang took out a magical artifact and recited an incantation.
"This way."
With that, the three human cultivators flew elsewhere.
The slime decided to become a lungfish for the period when the secret realm was open.
'I need to conceal my aura.'
He buried himself underground and entered a state of suspended animation.
Once he entered suspended animation, his demonic aura grew faint.
He spent fifteen days that way.
After the humans disappeared, the slime created the mudfield again.
Spirit herbs and spirit trees grew upon it.
The crow perched on a branch of one such spirit tree.
CAW— CAW—
(You made it through safely.)
WOBBLE— WOBBLE—
(You too.......)
Both of them had safely survived the dangerous period.
WOBBLE— WOBBLE—
(Should we head farther in?)
CAW— CAW—
(Sounds good.)
After 3-Star came 4-Star.
The slime and the crow Demon Beast worked together to advance their realms.
They reached 5-Star without much trouble.
'I'll become a Demon soon.'
He was one step away from 6-Star, from becoming a Demon.
Once he became a Demon, the character for beast would drop from the end of his title.
His bestial traits would gradually fade.
In their place came the character for demon, and with it the ability to employ a variety of arts.
He would truly begin to resemble a cultivator of the demon race.
'Let's go!'
He had accumulated enough spiritual energy to Evolve into 6-Star.
The slime spread all that spiritual energy throughout his body at once.
At the same time, he raised his demonic power.
Changes began to take place within the slime's body.
***
First, when he became a Demon.
His body grew larger.
He became as large as a brown bear.
'That's not as big as I expected.'
A brown bear was large by human standards, but.......
Many members of the demon race grew even larger.
'Some of the big ones are the size of buildings.'
The slime was on the small side for the demon race.
He still had two horns.
[Mud Demon Horns: Mudfield Creation. Has the effect of nurturing vegetation.]
[Mud Demon Horns: Waterflow Control.]
Only the name of the horns had changed; their functions showed no significant difference.
'This is surprisingly disappointing.......'
Going from Demon Beast to Demon was practically a species change.
Even so, nothing significant had changed aside from his larger size.
He was simply a bigger slime.
'Should I check my abilities?'
He would be sorely disappointed if even his abilities had not changed.
'Did the developers add slimes without putting any thought into them?'
It was possible.
This game had changed genres from fantasy to xianxia.
There might be characters whose later transformations the developers forgot while converting monsters into Demon Beasts.
'No wonder calling it a Mud Monster (slime) felt so lazy from the start.'
Perhaps they had merely changed its name to suit the xianxia setting.
If so, he would continue on without changing at all.
'Please let me get at least one useful ability.......'
[Abilities: Devouring. Acid Production. Acid Resistance. Poison Production. Poison Resistance. Bloodsucking. Hard and Tough Skin. Body Transformation. Camouflage. Reproduction. Regeneration. Water Cannon. Disguise Art.]
'What? There's barely any difference. Wait, what's that?'
One unusual ability had appeared.
[Disguise Art: Allows you to disguise yourself as any desired target. Only your outward appearance becomes identical to the target.]
It was like an inferior version of the Shapeshifting Art used for taking human form.
The Shapeshifting Art made even the body's internal structure identical to a human's.
Great Demons and above could learn the Shapeshifting Art.
Because they gained a body structured like a human's.......
They could practice the cultivation methods of human cultivators.
Disguise Art, by contrast, imitated only the outward appearance.
It could not be used to learn human cultivation methods.
Calling it an inferior version of the Shapeshifting Art fit perfectly.
Some fox and raccoon Demon Beasts could use Disguise Art from the Demon realm onward.
'Body Transformation and Camouflage already let me imitate appearances anyway.......'
It was not perfect, but.......
He could already transform into something fairly similar.
'But what good would that do?'
Cultivators gained Qi Sense starting from the Qi Refining Realm.
They could sense spiritual energy.
The spiritual energy of the demon race differed slightly from that of humans.
That was why humans called the demon race's spiritual energy demonic aura.
Once humans reached the Qi Refining Realm or above, they could distinguish humans from demons.
They could also roughly discern an opponent's realm.
Simply changing his appearance would be useless.
[Disguise: Alters your appearance and deceives the target's perception.]
'Ah! So it lets me deceive my opponent.'
Disguise was derived from the Qimen Dunjia arts.
At its core, it was an art for deceiving an opponent.
It was fundamentally different from the Shapeshifting Art, which transformed the practitioner's body.
Changing one's appearance was merely a secondary effect.
Its main purpose was deception.
'I can't become human... but I can make myself look human.'
Because it acted upon the target's perception, they would experience the disguise as real.
'If I use it well, I might even fool Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators.'
Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators could use divine sense.
It was a kind of ability to sense the spirit.
It allowed them to see within another being.
But that, too, was perception—an ability to sense.
Disguise Art was a spell that confused those senses.
'If I use it well, I might even infiltrate the human world. Ha ha.'
Using Disguise Art meant he could deceive humans into believing he was not a member of the demon race.
A human cultivator in the human world.
He could pass himself off as an immortal cultivator.
'This is better than I thought.......'
All kinds of plans arose in the slime's mind.
Being able to imitate a human cultivator offered many advantages.
'I need someone to test Disguise Art on.......'
As it happened, there was a perfect test subject right beside him.
***
'This guy has gotten so comfortable lately.......'
The crow Demon Beast was dozing in the nest it had built atop the mudfield.
The mudfield was the slime's territory.
Nothing dared enter it carelessly.
Anything that entered was devoured.
The slime was like a sentry standing guard for the crow.
There was nowhere safer for the crow than the mudfield.
When nothing special was happening, it preened its feathers or slept there.
The crow had even carried spirit stones into its nest.
Merely sitting there allowed it to replenish its spiritual energy.
It was the crow's own method, since it could not eat spirit stones directly.
Working with the slime had made the crow Demon Beast safer and more comfortable.
The crow was living the good life.
CAW— CAW—
(What are you doing?)
At the sound, the crow Demon Beast sprang into the air in shock.
FLAP— FLAP—
A creature identical to it was speaking before its eyes.
It was like waking from sleep to find your doppelganger standing there.
CAW— CAW—
(W-Who are you?!)
CAW— CAW—
(Your landlord.)
CAW—?
(?)
CAW— CAW—
(The owner of this mudfield.)
CAW— CAW—
(The Mud Demon Beast?)
CAW— CAW—
(I'm a Mud Demon now.)
Only then did the crow Demon Beast recognize him.
CAW— CAW—
(Congratulations on becoming a Demon.......)
Once the crow Demon Beast recognized him, the slime.
Continued the conversation in earnest.
***
"What do you think? Do I look convincing?"
"It's perfect. I didn't recognize you at all."
"Ha ha. Then it worked."
"How did you do that?"
"Disguise Art."
"Disguise Art?"
It was difficult to explain it to the crow Demon Beast.
"Think of it as a technique for deceiving others."
"Ah! So it is like this place."
"You're clever......."
The crow Demon Beast immediately understood the principle behind Disguise Art.
Disguise Art resembled the mudfield.
From the outside, it looked like ordinary ground.
Only after falling into the mudfield would someone realize it was a trap.
"You specialize in deception."
Between the mudfield, Camouflage, and Disguise Art, the slime had become specialized in deception.
"Do I?"
Hearing the crow Demon Beast say it, that did seem possible.
'Could my abilities have a skill tree?'
He felt as though he had glimpsed one of this world's secrets.
'No way. It must be a coincidence.'
Perhaps the developers had placed things haphazardly, only for such a pattern to emerge by chance.
"You're the one who's good at deception."
"I'm intelligent."
The slime and the crow bickered like that for a while.
***
"What about you? Still not there yet?"
"I still have a long way to go."
The crow Demon Beast was still at the beginning of 5-Star.
It had a long way to go before becoming a 6-Star Demon.
"That's a little troublesome......."
The difference was not as great as the one between the Foundation Establishment Realm and the Qi Refining Realm, but.......
There was a large difference in standing between a Demon and a Demon Beast.
The place they needed to go next was inhabited by Demons.
A 5-Star Demon Beast would struggle to survive there.
"Don't worry. I can fly, and I'm intelligent. I'll manage somehow."
"If you're all right with it... let's try."
The slime had reached the limit of his growth in this area.
He had to move to a hunting ground suited to his level.
As the crow said, it was intelligent.
It would find a way to keep up.
It always had until now.
"I think you need a name now."
The crow Demon Beast brought up the subject of a name for the slime.
"A name?"
"A Demon should have a proper title."
"Hmm... you're right."
A Demon had cast off the skin of a beast and become something that could be called a member of the demon race.
The powerful demons of Journey to the West all had names.
There were many kinds of titles, including the Bull Demon King, the Demon King of Havoc, and the Black Wind Monster.
"What should I choose.......?"
As he pondered, a fitting name came to mind.
"I'll call myself Jang Bung."
The Peng was a great bird born when Kun, a gigantic fish that lived in the cold, dark North Sea, transformed.
"That is the path I must follow."
The Peng could fly only when a typhoon forced it to stake its life, but.......
It was a true free spirit, never abandoning its wingbeats as it waited for the right time.
That suited him well.
Jang Bung explained the meaning of his name to the crow Demon Beast.
"Jang Bung... that's a wonderful name. Then give me one too."
"You little rascal. So that was your game."
The crow Demon Beast had brought up names because it ultimately wanted one of its own.
"Hehe."
Jang Bung considered a name for the crow Demon Beast.
"I know one that suits you."
"What is it?"
The crow waited expectantly.
"Hyeon-o. It means 'wise crow.'"
"That name suits me."
The crow Demon Beast took an immediate liking to the name Hyeon-o.
'Hyeon can also mean black. Hehe.'
Blackie had also been the name of a dog Jang Bung had raised back home.
It suited his pet crow Demon Beast perfectly.