Junior Sister is skilled in subduing demons.

Chapter 4: Taking First Blood
Wind and Thunder Tower.

An Zhi sat cross-legged with her eyes closed, her whole body swaying as if she was about to lose her support. As the halo above her head disappeared, An Zhi opened her eyes with a start, and after a long pause, she slowly looked up at the tower behind her.

"Hurry, go back right away, it's almost dawn." Before the spirit snake could say another word, it quickly jumped onto Anzhi's shoulder and urged her to hurry back to the Three Pure Lands, because it was almost dawn and the morning exercise was about to begin.

As Anzhi ran, he recalled his meeting with Meng Hong: "I, I saw the Grandmaster, I saw him."

"Haha, you've been right, haven't you? He just gave you a burst of spiritual energy and the Demon-Capturing Sword Technique." The spirit snake jumped left and right on Anzhi's shoulder: "You two are really destined to meet, you even met in your dreams, hahaha."

Upon hearing this, An Zhi excitedly muttered to himself, "I know the Demon-Capturing Sword Technique now! Haha, I know the Demon-Capturing Sword Technique!"

The Demon-Capturing Sword Technique is an entry-level sword technique for demon hunters at the Five-Coin level in the Sanqing Palace. It's something that someone at the Spirit Master level wouldn't even dare to dream of, let alone a disciple like Anzhi who isn't even a Spirit Master at the One-Coin level.

They rushed to the back gate of the blessed land, where the disciples of the Three Pure Ones had already begun their morning practice of the eighteen martial arts. The distant mountains were also beginning to dawn, and the two roosters in the courtyard were standing on the branches, crowing vigorously.

Taking advantage of everyone's inattention, An Zhi climbed up the tree by the wall and jumped into the courtyard, then frantically climbed up the scripture pavilion.

"Don't complain about how tough morning exercise is; it's your path to seeing the world."

Suddenly, Fan Jin's aged voice came, startling An Zhi so much that he immediately stood at attention, and the nimble snake darted into a book of scriptures.

As he slowly turned his head, he found that Old Man Fan hadn't even glanced at him and was walking out of the courtyard with his cane.

"Ah~~~~" Anzhi pouted and tiptoed towards the pavilion.

Standing once again on the balcony of the pavilion, overlooking his fellow students doing their morning exercises in the courtyard, Anzhi fell into deep thought.

As a one-coin spirit master, it was impossible for her to practice mornings with her fellow disciples who were about to grow from four-coin spirit masters to five-coin demon hunters. She was not qualified, and a sense of loss filled her entire face.

"Don't be discouraged." Seeing that no one was around, the spirit snake emerged from a scripture again, jumped onto Anzhi's shoulder, and looked at the Sanqing disciples doing their morning exercises in the courtyard, saying, "Come on, let's go do our morning exercises too."

"Ah!" Anzhi exclaimed excitedly, staring at the snake that had jumped onto the windowsill.

The snake slithered back and forth on the windowsill: "Old Fan just went to the Sanqing Palace, he probably won't be back until this afternoon."

"What do you want to do?" Anzhi asked expectantly.

The snake straightened its back: "Let's go play in the back mountain."

"Ah! That's not good, there, there are demons." Anzhi said no, but in his heart he was very honest and also wanted to try the demon-catching sword technique: "The sect, the sect's demon-catching competition is not over yet."

The spirit snake explained, "Because it's not over yet, we're going for a morning workout to help them capture a few demon spirits."

Anzhi was a little excited and nodded repeatedly: "Oh, hehe, then hurry up and do it."

Having learned that Old Man Fan would not be returning anytime soon, Anzhi, led by the spirit snake, boldly crawled out through the dog hole in the backyard of the blessed land and headed towards the back mountain of the Sanqing Palace.

The back mountain of Sanqing Palace is densely vegetated and possesses great spiritual energy. Moreover, there are various caves, stone embankments, and other features on the back mountain. More importantly, the back mountain is constructed in the shape of an octagonal maze, so sects release some low-level demon spirits on the back mountain for disciples to practice demon-catching techniques.

These past few days have happened to be the Sanqing Palace Demon-Catching Competition. A few days ago, Anzhi failed to obtain a single demon spirit seal during the competition.

"I wonder how many demon spirits they released today." An Zhi carefully walked into the depths of the forest, holding a peach wood sword. He thought that the competition hadn't even started yet, so there must have been more than ten demon spirits of various ranks released.

"See that tree?" the spirit snake suddenly instructed, coiled on Anzhi's shoulder.

Following the direction the spirit snake had given them, they saw a paulownia tree blocking the three-way intersection. It didn't seem like anything special: "Ah, a tree, I see it, what's wrong?"

Seeing Anzhi's dazed expression, the spirit snake reminded him again: "The ancestral master has already given you a sum of spiritual power, how come you still can't see it?"

An Zhi frowned and began to concentrate his energy. He felt a surge of power flowing from the soles of his feet into his brain, and his eyes began to turn green.

Finally, she saw that it was a paulownia tree spirit, and from the aura it emitted, she estimated that it should be a second-tier spirit.

Spirits are also divided into levels. The lowest level of spirit is the lowest level of spirit, possessing only basic spirituality and simple magic.

Once a spirit reaches level four from level one, it upgrades to a monster, possessing greater magic and intelligence, and can change its form at any time.

A novice monster advances to an intermediate level, and upon reaching an advanced level, it is upgraded to a Demon Lord, the pinnacle of monsters. This demon lord is extremely powerful, capable of freely absorbing elements from nature, and possesses an aura of dominance over heaven and earth.

After advancing to the next level, a Demon Lord becomes the supreme ruler, the Demon Emperor, who holds absolute power among demons and spirits, can control the fate of the demon race, and can even challenge the human race.

Faced with the disguised paulownia tree demon in front of him, Anzhi gathered his spiritual energy into the peach wood sword and waited for the right moment to stab it, but the paulownia tree demon dodged it.

Faced with the attack, the tree spirit knew that it was doomed today. It stretched out its tentacles to entangle Anzhi, and the transformed branches pierced Anzhi with sharp thorns.

At the critical moment, An Zhi used his spiritual energy to create a barrier that blocked the sharp branches. Then, he swung his sword and cleaved the paulownia tree demon in two. The demon then disappeared, leaving behind two demon spirit seals.

"Seals! Seals!" An Zhi was overjoyed as he picked up the two demon spirit seals from the ground. He was extremely excited. In the last competition, he didn't have a single seal, which led to his tragic life. Today, he actually got two at once.

The advancement of demon hunters is very strict. Collecting one hundred demon spirit seals will upgrade you to a five-coin demon hunter, collecting fifty demon monster seals will upgrade you to a demon exorcist, and collecting twenty demon lord seals will upgrade you to a demon slayer.

Currently, the only person in Sanqing Mountain who is also the Nine-Coin Demon Exorcist is the current sect leader, Master Yuxu.

Just as Anzhi was about to make further progress in the back mountain, a group of Sanqing disciples who were participating in the competition and assessment walked towards the back mountain with steps that showed no regard for emotions. This forced Anzhi to stop and return to the blessed land through the dog hole.

An Zhi wiped the demon spirit seal in his hand again and again. After more than a year of cultivation in Sanqing Mountain, he finally obtained the first drop of blood.

“If you digest it, your power will greatly increase,” the spirit snake said.

Anzhi immediately sat cross-legged on the ground, raised his hands slightly, and placed a demon spirit seal in each of his left and right palms. Then he circulated his energy to digest the seals, and the seals slowly disappeared in his palms under the corrosive influence of the spiritual energy.

"Would you like to cultivate with the patriarch?" The spirit snake jumped down from the scripture.

“Yes!” Anzhi nodded firmly.

The serpent unleashed its power once more.

Soon, Anzhi felt drowsy and finally met the demon slayer Meng Hong in his dream.

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"Where's my junior sister? Is she slacking off today?"

After an unknown amount of time, a sharp sound came from below the pavilion. Anzhi opened his eyes instantly, the blurriness in his eyes still not dissipated. The spirit snake also darted into a corner of the room.

"What are you afraid of?" Anzhi asked, lying on the ground and looking at the spirit snake curled up under the cabinet.

The Serpent: "It's not that I'm afraid, it's just that the fewer people who know I exist, the better. Ideally, no one should know I exist at all, you know what I mean."

Anzhi suddenly realized that spirits with spiritual power were rare in Sanqing Mountain, and everyone wanted to catch one as their pet. Thinking of the leopard cat he had tamed before, Anzhi dared not reveal the existence of the spirit snake.

Brushing the dust off his clothes, Anzhi calmly went downstairs.

At this moment, Luo Ling was searching for something in the scripture pavilion, stroking the leopard cat that had once belonged to her in her hands.

"What are you doing here?" An Zhi asked abruptly.

Luo Ling couldn't help but laugh when she saw An Zhi covered in dirt and grime: "Hahaha, I came to see if you've been slacking off. You're covered in mud and dirt. Did you crawl through a dog hole? You have no image at all."

Anzhi's heart skipped a beat. Had he been discovered?
Before Anzhi could react, Luo Ling continued her barrage: "Look at all this dust in the library. Was Fan Jin not here, and you were up there taking a nap? No wonder you're such a wimp."

Faced with Luo Ling's provocation, An Zhi chose to endure it for the time being. She forced a smile and admitted her mistake, saying, "Yes, yes, Senior Sister is right to teach me a lesson. I, I will clean up right away, I will clean up right away."

After saying that, Anzhi began to wipe the dust off the scriptures with a rag.