Beast Emperor.

BOOM! CRASH!

A large bolt of silver lightning struck a tree not too far away from where Wu Shen was hiding, lighting the surrounding trees aflame. The lightning had gotten so intense that not even Wu Shen dared to keep moving in it.

In Wu Shen's estimation, it had been at least 3 hours since he escaped from the Wu Clan and he had traveled about 3 kilometers.

'They might still be following so I'll hide in this cave for now. I doubt the guards would come this far since I'm sure they think I'm dead. But, just in case, I'll absorb the old man's blood, bury his body and continue moving.'

Wu Shen walked to the back of the cave, threw the remains of both people down on the ground, and turned his attention to the body of Wu Gang. A hint of seriousness appeared on his face as he thought, 'His blood is still poisoned. Hmm, I can probably use my will to suppress and remove it but it might be a little difficult at my current strength.'

Wu Shen, as a man whose soul strength and will was equal to the strength of over a million souls in his past life, completing a mundane task such as expelling poison was no problem. His will was already tempered over eight lifetimes so there was nothing he feared.

Using the same move that was done on the maid, Wu Shen sliced off Wu Gang's head and drank his blood, making sure not a drop was wasted.

"Ahh, good."

A savage smile appeared on his face as he savored the taste and closed his eyes. He immediately started expelling the poison, separating it from the blood that was not flowing through his veins. At first, it was difficult since he was still getting accustomed to the new body, but after a while, the process was like second nature.

About thirty minutes later, Wu Shen could be seen standing up with a slimy black liquid flowing out of his pores, covering most of his upper body. Just from Wu Gang's head alone, this was the amount of poison Wu Shen ingested. One could only imagine the horrendous results if he had taken all of Wu Gang's blood.

"Good. Now to take care of these bodies."

Although Wu Shen didn't check on his body condition immediately, he had already noticed the incredible amount of true energy built up inside of him. He had absorbed the entire cultivation of an Energy Weapon(sixth phase) expert so his true energy levels matched someone at that degree. Wu Shen wasn't as skilled with its usage nor did he have the same power Wu Gang had, but it was still strong enough.

Even his body got marginally stronger after ingesting the blood. But, he didn't rush his progress. He was ready to break through to the second phase at any time but he still hadn't figured out the main cultivation technique that he would use as his foundation. After all, that was one of the most important parts of cultivation.

Wu Shen took the expensive blue robes off of Wu Gang's body threw them to the side as he prepared to start burying the bodies.

About ten minutes later, Wu Shen smoothed the ground out with his feet as the spot where he buried the remains was left extremely smooth. There were traces of blood left but he couldn't do anything about that now, his skill set was currently too limited.

Taking a deep breath while looking up at the lightning in the sky, Wu Shen exited the cave and continued heading West into the forest with no intentions of stopping for now.

[The next morning]

Wu Shen arrived at a large lake that was about two thousand paces away from a small village. The morning sun had risen into the sky in its full glory, emanating the usual summertime heat. The lightning storm that was there the night before left no traces in its departure, causing a stark contrast from then to now.

Wu Shen let out a deep sigh, threw his clothing to the ground, and dived into the lake to take a bath.

"Whew, there's nothing like a good bath to wash away all the fatigue."

After swimming around for a bit, he rose to the surface and leaned against the shore, sinking into deep thought.

'In my entire reincarnation cycle, this is the second time I've ever gone to a cultivation world. I have a multitude of techniques remaining from when I conquered the first one so I should probably use something from that. I need to choose one that would be the equivalent of a godly class energy art...'

The classes of energy arts were split up into eight parts. They were split into third-class, second-class, first-class, royal-class, Imperial-class, saintly-class, heavenly-class, and Godly-class energy arts.

For the most part, a first-class energy art cultivation technique could support an aristocratic clan for hundreds of years, perhaps even thousands. Royal-class energy arts were enough to found royal dynasties.

As for imperial-class, saintly-class, and heavenly-class energy arts, they were the things of legend.

When it came to the godly-class energy arts, as the name implied, they were the type that ordinary humans couldn't even cultivate. They were the techniques of spirits and gods.

The Wu Clan's strongest energy art, the Life-Rending Sword, was barely a first-class martial art so one could immediately see that their power was nothing special.

'My sea of energy was crippled and even with all the blood I absorbed, it still hasn't regenerated fully. But, it's stable enough for me to start cultivating. And I've finally figured out which technique I want to start with. It should also help with my sea of energy problem.'

Wu Shen got out of the water, put on the blue robes, and sat down cross-legged under a tree, closing his eyes. From the thousands of cultivation techniques Wu Shen knew, he had picked two of them to guide him through his cultivation journey. The main technique was called the Stygian Beast Emperor's Sutra. This energy art allowed him to harvest the shadows of demonic beasts when they were killed and enslave them or use them to further his cultivation.

It also allowed him to form a demon core within himself as the user would become a beast himself. But Wu Shen didn't know what else this cultivation technique offered because he never practiced it before. He was already far along his own cultivation path when he found this technique in his past life.

Now that he planned to make it an energy art, it might offer even more uses as energy arts were fundamentally different from the martial arts in his other world.

His supporting cultivation technique was called Vast Universe Supernatural Art. This allowed him to make more 'worlds' inside of himself to increase his amount of true energy. In terms of this world, it would allow him to make more than one sea of energy within himself, increasing his already abundant energy many times over. The art even allowed him to use his true energy to boost his basic abilities considerably for a time, consolidating its supportive qualities. It was almost a cheat.

Wu Shen inhaled deeply and said to himself, "Alright, time to start training."