Start as a Temple Spirit

Yihuo gladly accepted the boss's kindness and ran to play with the old patriarch...well, to comfort the wolf cubs who were frightened by the roar of thunder and hiding in the corner.

Seeing this, everyone smiled and dispersed.

"Chief, Liangshan, it's not a good thing that he's always struck by lightning. You have to persuade him." Yihuo of Lulang looked worried.

"There's no way to say." The old patriarch shook his head and saw Yihuo, Da Niu and Da Gou looking at him with confusion.

The old man sighed and explained, "We have only tens of thousands of people in Forgotten Township. Even if everyone is sincere in offering sacrifices, the incense and vows generated are not enough for Liangshan's cultivation. What's more, there are now Heizi and Xiaocao."

"So if Liang Shan wants to become stronger, he must be struck by lightning, absorb the power of lightning to practice, and enhance his cultivation, so that he can protect the Forgotten Township."

After hearing this, Yihuo and the other two fell silent. This problem had no answer, at least for now.

The next evening, when Shang Liangshan appeared in everyone's sight.

Everyone noticed that his temperament had changed, becoming ethereal yet domineering.

What surprised everyone was that the sense of illusion that Shang Liangshan had given people before had actually changed directly, and a sense of reality naturally emerged.

Yang Chao even looked at Shang Liangshan for a long time before asking incredulously, "Liangshan, have you materialized your body?"

Before he finished speaking, he shook his head and denied, "No, to materialize the body, you need a mysterious spirit to do it."

"What is Xuanling?" Shang Liangshan asked, grasping the key point.

“You don’t know.” Yang Chao finished speaking, and then he understood that it was reasonable that no one in Forgotten Township knew the level of temple spirits.

Since no one knew, no one told Shang Liangshan, the wild temple spirit.

So he explained, “A temple spirit is born as a second-level village spirit.”

"Then there are the third-level township spirits, the fourth-level town spirits, which are also county spirits, the fifth-level prefecture spirits, the sixth-grade yellow spirits, the seventh-grade black spirits, the eighth-grade earth spirits, and the ninth-grade sky spirits."

"So the levels of temple spirits are: village, township, county, prefecture, yellow, black, earth, and heaven."

Shang Liangshan heard this and pointed at himself and asked Yang Chao, "What rank am I?"

"You..." Yang Chao looked at Yi Wu with a strange expression and asked, "Old Patriarch, can you defeat Liangshan?"

"I can't win." The old patriarch shook his head. Although he had never fought with Shang Liangshan, he could still sense that he could not win. This was the intuition gained from experiencing life and death.

Yang Chao was not surprised at all, and said to Liang Shan with amusement: "Master Temple Spirit, you are a fifth-rank palace spirit!"

After he finished speaking, he cursed Shang Liangshan in his heart as a pervert.

If you are not a pervert, will you be struck by lightning?

Fortunately, Yang Chao was not a follower of Shang Liangshan, otherwise the latter would sense it and if this guy in front of him called him a pervert, he would have to beat him up.

"Fifth-grade palace spirit!" Yifeng, who was usually calm, could no longer remain calm after hearing this.

This is the spirit of the palace. Even if the people of the whole palace worship it devoutly, they may not be able to support it.

And if word were to get out that their little Forgotten Village actually had a palace spirit, no one would dare to believe it.

Yiwu drank his tea calmly, because he had never been calm before.

As for the big dog next to it, it was stunned.

Shang Liangshan didn't care about everyone's surprise. He looked at Yang Chao expectantly and asked, "Yang Chao, do you have any skills that I can practice?"

“No.” Yang Chao shook his head. Seeing Shang Liangshan’s disappointment, he added, “It is said that once a seventh-grade Xuanling appears, a Taoist master will show up and teach him how to practice.”

"However, there is a prerequisite for this. You have to join the Taoist sect and work for it."

"It's probably not that easy to pass on the Taoist teachings, and there may be limitations." Yifeng shook his head.

"That's for sure. In order to practice the martial arts, the old man fought on the battlefield, risking his life. If it weren't for Yin..." The old patriarch stopped talking in time and didn't say any more.

"Hehe, I was wondering how there could be a complete set of martial arts training techniques in the Forgotten Land. So that's how it is." Yang Chao laughed.

"The old man didn't say anything." The old patriarch shook his head and refused to admit it.

Yifeng was quite carefree and said to Yang Chao with a smile: "They are just mainland products. Many villages have them."

"Village, mountain village." Shang Liangshan muttered, then thought of something and changed his words slightly, asking, "Are there other cultivation systems in the villages among the Hundred Thousand Mountains?"

"Yes," the old patriarch nodded affirmatively and replied, "Beast trainer, poison cultivator, Gu cultivator."

"Please tell me in detail." Shang Liangshan became interested and sat down next to the old patriarch.

The old patriarch took a sip of tea and said thoughtfully: "You know the beast tamer in Liangshan, Lao Liu is it, so I won't say anything."

"A poison cultivator turns himself into a poisonous person. When he waves his hand, poisonous mist fills the air. It's very scary."

"Gu cultivation is a unique cultivation system in the ancient mountain village among the Hundred Thousand Mountains."

"The old man doesn't know much. He only knows that they can make poisonous insects and kill people without being seen. Their strength is quite terrifying. Even the sects don't dare to provoke them easily."

Seeing that the old patriarch had run out of ideas, Shang Liangshan turned to look at Yifeng and Yang Chao to see if they had anything to add.

As expected, Yifeng added: "The Gu worms are grown by poisonous insects fighting and devouring each other, and then fed with heart blood."

Yang Chao continued, "You can think of Gu worms as terrifying mutant poisonous insects that are fed by cultivators using poisons. They have different strengths."

"But even the weakest poisonous insects are terrifying once they form a group. The most terrible thing is that poisonous insects are good at hiding, which makes them more troublesome than assassins."

"Fortunately, Gu cultivators don't come out easily." The old patriarch said thankfully.

"The Shiwanda Mountains are really dangerous." Shang Liangshan came to this conclusion in his mind.

As night falls, the invisible negative energy slowly grows heavier, and the roars of wild beasts can be heard in the mountains and forests, filling the air with uneasiness.

"Ga Ga" was responsible for patrolling the black spots outside the Forgotten Township. He would return with a roar, reporting the enemy situation to his master in a hurry and with excitement.

"Nearly thirty ghost apes are crossing the river and heading towards the village. They are led by a level five ghost ape, five level four ghost apes, and the rest are all level three." Shang Liangshan translated to the old patriarch.

"Pah" the old patriarch clapped his legs and stood up. The old soldier said sternly: "Then let's go kill them and make pills for Heizi to eat."

"Haha" Heizi nodded excitedly. This old guy is really tough.

"Okay." Shang Liangshan nodded, summoned Ziyun, and flew towards the village gate carrying the old patriarch.

The night wind was howling, the bright moon was shrouded in dark clouds, and the occasional sparse moonlight sprinkled through, giving people a gloomy feeling.

Shang Liang drove Ziyun and, under the guidance of Heizi, flew over the rock wall.

"Wait a minute," the old patriarch said anxiously.

"What's wrong?" Shang Liangshan looked around and found nothing unusual.

"Are we going to deal with the group of ghost apes just the two of us, without calling for help?" the old patriarch asked in surprise.

"Heizi is a helper." Shang Liangshan said as a matter of course.

"What the old man means is that we should call Yifeng and the others to go kill the ghost ape together." The old patriarch said helplessly.