Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

The next morning, Yan Yu came down the stairs holding his neck.

"What's wrong with you?" Lin Ning was making breakfast in the kitchen and asked curiously when she saw his grimacing expression.

"I woke up with a crick in my neck," Yan Yu replied.

"Oh." Lin Ning earnestly admonished him, "Don't sleep on too soft a pillow, and pay attention to your sleeping position."

"Mhmm." Yan Yu thought to himself that pillow was indeed too big and too soft, no wonder it caused my neck muscles to ache, Zhao Yuanzhen you really deserve to die!

Anna and her two cousins had gotten up early and were sitting in the living room chatting in the language of Rakshasa.

When they saw Yan Yu coming, they gave Anna a meaningful look.

"Shall we go out for a walk?" Anna stood up and said, "Breakfast seems to be a while away still."

"Hmm." Yan Yu noticed she seemed to have something to say to him and nodded.

The two of them left the villa through the front door and started to stroll around the yard. Su Yunjin had turned the place into a small garden with a gazebo and swing set up in the corners, all very beautiful and elegant.

"I like it here," Anna broke the silence first, speaking wistfully, "But I can't stay in Lu Country forever, I will have to go back eventually."

"Yeah, I know," Yan Yu nodded.

If he wanted to keep Anna in the country, the best opportunity would have been during the Four Institutes Exchange Competition. All he had to do was prevent her father from taking her out of the country.

But by doing so, Anna wouldn't be able to become the Eclipse Queen, and a new, unfamiliar power would rise in the north of Lu Country... All outcomes seemed to be a loss.

Now that Anna had become a part of the Amur Witch Group, no matter how much she missed her homeland of Lu Country, it couldn't change the fact that her home and her family and friends were all in Amur.

She no longer belonged to Lu Country.

"Last night, it was Sofia and Maria who used the Rasputin Spell Curse on me that can hypnotize the mind," Anna continued to explain, "They wanted me to sleep with you and then use that to make you stand on the side of our witch group, to influence the decisions of the Lu Country's upper echelons."

"There is no need for that," Yan Yu calmly answered, "I will also try my best to help you."

"Yeah, I know," said Anna, stopping at the edge of the yard, making sure they couldn't be seen from the windows of the villa.

She hesitated for a moment before asking suddenly:

"Can... can I hug you?"

Yan Yu looked at her in surprise.

"I'm not under a spell." Anna didn't know how to express herself, fidgeting with her fingers and stammering, "I just... want a hug, after all... since I'm here, right?"

"Sure." Yan Yu thought to himself that if in this life you can still become the Eclipse Queen, you'd have the privilege to be embraced by me.

He slowly opened his arms, his Divine Sense on alert, scanning the surroundings. Anna nestled into his embrace, her arms wrapping tightly around his back as if yearning for the warmth of last night.

Closing her eyes slowly, Anna finally made up her mind and whispered in Yan Yu's ear:

"In the Amur Witch Group, only female Transcendents are present, and mortal men have no place to marry among us, and Transcendents are our enemies, so I had already prepared myself for a life of solitude."
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"I know you are a Rikoku Cultivator. But, if in the future... you ever want to leave Lu Country, I will always wait for you in the north, whether I'm thirty, forty, fifty years old... whether my temples are streaked with gray or my hair turned fully silver..."

"...I will wait forever and ever, until the very last moment."

After pecking him lightly on the cheek, Anna released him and said forthrightly:

"Alright, let's go back."

Yan Yu touched the spot on his face where she had pecked him and fell silent for a while before asking:

"When did it start?"

"I don't know," Anna walked ahead, casually replying, "Maybe it was that time I was drowning and you rescued me?"

"What's this?" Yan Yu couldn't help but laugh, "Love at first sight?"

"Who knows?" Anna also smiled, "Is that important?"

Indeed, it wasn't important.

Love by its very nature defies reason, sometimes it's love at first sight between strangers, and other times affection grows gradually over countless months of familiarity. Regardless of the scenario, it doesn't matter, for they are merely beginnings.

Not all blossoming love leads to fruition, nor do all feelings end in conclusions. Yan Yu helped Anna not for her beauty, but since Anna chose to offer herself, a bit more help didn't make a difference.

If the two of them were to further develop their relationship, they first needed to make Lu Country and the Amur Witch Group on good terms or even form an alliance. Moreover, the Amur Witch Group must become the northern overlord to deter neighboring forces from provoking them.

Only then would the Eclipse Queen have the opportunity for "friendly visits" to Lu Country on a regular basis, allowing for the possibility of their relationship advancing further.

With that in mind, persuading Chen Tianming to help had become a must-do task.

The two returned to the villa's living room. Sofia and Maria looked at Anna, seeing her relieved expression as if her worries had vanished, they couldn't figure out what had happened and could only communicate their curiosity with questioning glances.

But Anna refused to satisfy their curiosity, merely pursing her lips and gracing them with a slight smile.

After breakfast, the members of the Zhenhai Team headed to the academy, leaving Xie Ruoxi at home to host Anna and the other two.

The girls watched recordings of other teams' battles at the training ground while Yan Yu, as usual, went to the headmaster's office to report, and sure enough, saw Chen Tianming there as well.

"Yan Yu, your timing is perfect," Li Weiguo said with a smile, "With the progress of the Spiritual Energy Resurgence increasing, the higher-ups have sent new instructional material. Take a look."

The resurgence of spiritual energy increased its concentration globally, and the upper limit of cultivation realms rose, granting cultivators the ability to use more powerful spells—no wonder Mei Yingxue spent all day at the experimental base in Pingjing; after all, she had to write a new textbook every six months.

Yan Yu flipped through the new material and indeed, after reaching the Foundation Establishment stage, Sword Flight had also appeared in the textbooks.

The so-called Sword Flight involved enfolding oneself in sword light to move at high speed over long distances. To the outside world, it looked like a streak of sword light zipping by, very chic and dashing.

Similar to the Shifting Technique, the speed of Sword Flight depended on the amount of True Yuan supplied. If a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment stage used Sword Flight at full speed, they could reach speeds around Mach 1, faster than most commercial airliners.

Beyond Sword Flight, Mei Yingxue had also composed some material specific to the four major professions of sword and spell Assistant Enforcers, based on her understanding.

She detailed the effects of each of the Sword Immortal's techniques most thoroughly and exquisitely. As for the ultimate paths of spell cultivators and Tao transformation, the Assistant Officer's method of the second divine spirit, and the Envoy's all-seeing abilities...

Unfortunately, as a pure Sword Immortal, Teacher Mei lacked the ability to know everything, so she could only briefly mention what she had heard.

When moving to the next level, the Hua Fu Stage, Teacher Mei, who had not formed her Golden Core, couldn't plan out the textbooks from a high vantage point, and it would be up to Rikoku Cultivator researchers to explore further.

"How is it?" Li Weiguo asked again.

"It's quite good," Yan Yu closed the textbook.

In the era of the Three Arts and Five Spells, he was able to offer some suggestions for the textbooks. But now, what determined a cultivator's strength was mainly their cultivation realm and their unique system of cultivation methods. The general items in the textbooks were no longer as significant.

Li Weiguo was quite satisfied with his reaction and glanced at Chen Tianming, saying:

"For the short term, you shouldn't have any missions. Take this textbook back and get the team to start learning it quickly."

The Shenxing Battle Team of the Zhendong Army had suffered a crushing defeat against the Huofeng Team soon after it was formed; similarly, the Dingbei Army's Flying Dragon Team was beaten by the Zhenhai Team.

Part of the reason was that the higher-ups wanted to temper the pride of these second-generation team cultivators, but it also highlighted how important experience was to a cultivator's combat strength—after all, although the teams were divided into first and second generations, the cultivators themselves all started school at the same time.

Clearly, college student cultivators who had never experienced battle in mysterious realms and merely attended classes at the academy were much weaker than the seasoned team cultivators.

Thus, the Privy Council quickly changed its strategy, pushing to implement the team system comprehensively, making all college student cultivators into team cultivators.

Consequently, the majority of mysterious realms domestically with lower difficulty would become training grounds and test arenas for the many newly formed teams of the four armies.

Only secret realms like the three island treasure ships and Changping Shadow Palace, which either had very strong guardians or involved foreign Transcendents, would be left for veteran teams like the Zhenghai Dragon Cavalry to handle.

The past packed schedule of clearing Wuyi Mountain Secret Realm and then moving to Longquan Mountain Secret Realm soon after, marking the time of insufficient team manpower, would no longer happen!

Yan Yu naturally welcomed this development. To him, tackling simple mysterious realms held little interest; he would rather spend that time training his teammates properly.

"Sure, I also have something on my end," he reminded Li Weiguo, "It's something Chen Lingyun previously reported to you."

"Mhmm," Li Weiguo nodded, "The Amur witch, Chen Lingyun has already briefed me on it."

"Yan Yu," Chen Tianming suddenly smiled, "Be honest with us, is that witch your friend, or is she your lover?"

Although Old Taishan's smile was gentle, it concealed a subtle scrutiny and questioning. Yan Yu was about to clarify by saying "We're just friends," but a rush of memories from his past life about Chen Tianming came to mind, and he had a stroke of inspiration, saying:

"She may not quite be my lover, but she has long harbored deep feelings for me and confessed her love. Currently, it's a unilateral commitment where she has entrusted her life to me."