Xie Yiqian, a great demon of the third level of Ascension, had survived two immortal tribulations and lived for two thousand years.
But no matter how he scoured his memories, in his two-thousand-year crab existence, he had never seen such a strange human.
Despite his spiritual energy fluctuations only being at the third level of the Dao Path, he was calmly facing the scrutiny of dozens of Ascended beings.
Although everyone had restrained their immortal essence pressure beforehand, Xie Yiqian found the young man's boldness to be unprecedented, and he couldn't help but think to himself:
"As expected of the man Princess Linglong took a liking to, this courage and spirit are truly extraordinary."
"However, why do I feel that the way this kid is looking at me is getting stranger? Is he staring at my proud great claws? This gaze… it seems… hungry?"
Thinking this, Xie Yiqian quickly shook his head, "Illusion! Illusion! This kid must have never seen a demon as majestic as old Xie! He must be marveling at the aesthetic beauty of my great claws!"
Lost in thought, Xie Yiqian couldn't help but puff out his chest, making his two great claws even more conspicuous, which only made Chen Luo more curious about the taste of these great claw crabs.
Chen Luo scanned the other demons who were also sizing him up, then stroked his chin, his gaze becoming playful:
"These are demons? Not half-breeds like Linglong, but actual monsters. Interesting, very interesting. I wonder if it's spiritual energy or some other reason that has allowed these clearly different beings to uniformly become intelligent demons capable of transforming into a semi-human form?"
As Chen Luo and the Ascended elders stared at each other, a lazy voice suddenly came from outside the crowd:
"Alright, you old fellows, all of you, fully transform into human form! Stop walking around with your original heads. Can't you see that Young Master Chen isn't scared by you at all?"
"Yes! Your subordinates obey the command of Lady Long Ji!"
These great demons, who had intended to tease Chen Luo, seemed to be completely convinced by the voice's owner. They all responded in unison, and streams of dense immortal essence light enveloped them.
Spiritual energy was a pure white light invisible to ordinary people, while the immortal essence used by Ascended powerhouses was a unique energy shimmering with brilliant colors.
In Chen Luo's eyes, within the immortal essence energy, each speck contained extremely complex spiritual patterns, and even under the impetus of immortal essence, the power of these spiritual patterns was undergoing new changes.
And as these countless spiritual patterns worked in conjunction with the immortal essence, the great demons within the light underwent astonishing transformations.
"Shapeshifting is also a form of spiritual pattern Dao technique. However, this technique is not created by later cultivators, but rather a congenital Dao technique bestowed by the Heavenly Dao after demons cross the great Ascension tribulation!"
His black pupils reflected the countless spiritual pattern changes contained within the Dao technique before him. Chen Luo had a feeling that if he could fully master this congenital Dao technique called "Shapeshifting," he could forcibly reverse the physical bodies of all living beings into human form!
No! Looking at the beings among the great demons that were clearly cultivated from plants or even minerals, Chen Luo believed he might have underestimated the power of this Dao technique!
This was a supreme Dao technique that fundamentally altered life forms!
These great demons were merely using a black box called "Shapeshifting Technique"; they couldn't comprehend the power behind this Dao technique at all!
Chen Luo did his best to record the incredibly complex and profound spiritual pattern changes in his mind. At this moment, the sheer volume of data even made Chen Luo's brain feel a slight dizziness.
[You have observed a congenital Dao technique "Shapeshifting" performed by an Ascended-level great demon. As this Dao technique's world has not been incorporated into the game system, the game cannot directly assist you in quantifying skill learning.]
[Exploring the origin of power is the inevitable path to reaching the highest level. Congratulations on beginning to tread the path of power outside the game.]
At this moment, the Doomsday Game also acknowledged Chen Luo's actions, and the prompts it displayed revealed much interesting information.
It seemed that as long as the Doomsday Game incorporated a world into its system, it could integrate the power within that world into the Doomsday Game's system, thereby helping players stabilize skill effects and even guiding their improvement direction.
However, from the second prompt, the game itself did not seem to oppose players actively engaging with powers outside the game's control.
Chen Luo understood the meaning after a brief thought. If one only relied on the game's power system to become stronger, it was often a case of knowing the 'what' but not the 'why.'
It was like being thrown onto a battlefield, handed an AK-47, and simply being taught how to fire it.
With that, you could naturally fire and kill enemies, but it was the gun that was strong, not you without the gun.
All skills and talents in the Doomsday Game were initially designed to help players quickly adapt to the challenges that constantly appeared. However, the game seemed to prefer players to actively understand the reasons behind the power.
Of course, Chen Luo was unaware that the current world had been specially selected for him by the Doomsday Game within its rules.
In the Doomsday Game's assessment, the power system of this world could greatly compensate for Chen Luo's current shortcomings and had a certain possibility of helping him ascend to a higher level of existence!
The Doomsday Game had once frankly told Chen Luo that one of its objectives was to hope for a world that could reach the so-called final chapter.
But with countless great lords blocking the way, in the countless completed rounds of the game, not a single world had been able to truly reach the final chapter.
As the game chapters continuously opened, all worlds would be gradually drawn into deeper voids.
But those great lords residing in the deep voids had turned the worlds chosen by the game into hunting grounds, causing the game to become a true doomsday that could not be cleared.
The Doomsday Game had no subjective emotions and was bound by underlying rules, thus it could not act against these great lords. Moreover, in the Doomsday Game's design, these great lords were actually necessary checkpoints.
But if no one cleared them, then the very meaning of the game's existence would be lost. After countless void years of operating meaninglessly.
This highest-difficulty game, which was the only one so far, also gave the Doomsday Game a glimmer of hope for a breakthrough.
However, Chen Luo was still too inexperienced in the face of the great lords.
Therefore, the system was now almost explicitly telling Chen Luo to quickly study the power of this world!
Chen Luo vaguely guessed the game's intention, but this suited him perfectly.
In his mind, the vast amount of spiritual pattern data he had recorded began further analysis. Chen Luo was, step by step, attempting to grasp his own future with his own power.