“What did I just watch… Did that guy really include quotes from old movies in that speech?”

A man covered head to toe by a stylish dark robe was looking up into the heavens. There in the clouds was a grand projection of a face that he knew. While listening to the long-winded tale he placed his hand to his cheek where he still remembered getting hit by the person that just finished talking.

Wang Long was his name which he chose as a joke. Now after being the reason for his own sect’s downfall he was taking it easy in one of the largest cities that the empire had to offer. The projection came as a surprise as he had never seen anyone else use these sorts of treasures in this world. At most, they had theater plays or musicals that were not recorded for later use.

“Are we going to have two emperors now?”

“How can that happen?”

“So is this Golden Dragon just a part of the Long Clan or something?”

“It doesn’t matter who he is you fool, he is clearly someone important so keep your mouth quiet if you see someone from the capital!”

Wang Long was sitting at an empty table at a certain costly inn. After his plan of eradication was fruitful he was at a loss. To him, this was a game but one that was not that easy to play. There were no map markers pointing him to his next destination. In his mind, he needed to find the right NPC to show him to the next stage of this ‘game’.

While he was deliberating on his next move the speech happened. For the time being, he was hiding his face behind a certain skill that he bought from the system store. It was a demonic technique that made people perceive it to be different even when directly looking at it.

This technique performed the same act as the one Zhang Dong was using but it was fundamentally different. The other one actually altered the person’s body structure at the molecular level. Which had its advantages and disadvantages.

The only reason Wang Long went with this type of technique over the other was that he was quite vane. He did not want to change the perfectly crafted face that he possessed. If he did he felt like his new persona could crumble and that would remember his previous appearance before coming to this world.

‘Look at those idiots talking... ‘

While sipping some expensive wine he continued to listen as after the speech was over, he was part of the news.

“But that Wang Long is clearly a no good maniac.”

“You’re right, how could someone kill everyone from their own sect? Does he have no remorse for his own family?”

“It was also the Soaring Dragon sect… how do they expect us to deal with someone that could do that?”

As he continued to listen he became more annoyed than ever. Before Zhang Dong came along no one dared utter his name in bad faith. Now on the other hand they were calling him a murderous bastard that ate newborns for breakfast.

‘I did switch my alignment though… where do demonic cultivators even go?’

Wang Long was not someone that planned out things too well. This was the first time that he was truly alone even the place that he was in now wasn’t that far away from the Soaring Dragon Sect grounds.

With the money that he took from there, he could actually live a life of leisure which made him regress to his old ways. In the city that he was in he could live in a good hotel while they delivered women to him. There wasn’t that much of a difference, with some spirit stones he could make almost everyone do his bidding.

His main goal was to shut down his true opponent that was Zhang Dong. For now, he feared attacking his faction base even with his current improvement. He had no allies and no particular place that he could call his home.

Zhang Dong had clearly gone for the faction building option that he had previously ignored. Now after his first loss he took some time to examine this part of his system tab. But without actually having a faction of his own, he could not test anything out.

‘Do I need to create my own faction now? As a demonic cultivator it would probably be best to take over an evil sect… but is there one that can go against that bastard?’

While he mostly ignored the political and geographical lessons that his old sect tried to force upon him, he did know who the Azure Emperor was. If Zhang Dong had managed to trigger the emperor’s favor he would need to somehow counter it.

At first, he thought that his only option would be to just drain people for spirit points and increase his battling capabilities. But luck was on his side as one of the NPC's that he was eavesdropping on gave him some critical information.

“Where do you think that murderous Wang Long vanished to? You don’t think he could be staying in our Fragrant Jade City?”

“How would that make any sense? Who would be stupid enough to flee to the closest large city they can find?”

The man telling this burst out in laughter while Wang Long’s face contorted into anger. It seemed that even this nobody knew that it would be unreasonable for a demonic cultivator to flee to the closest big city next to the crime scene.

“We would have known if he passed through here, those demonic cultivators are cruel bastards!”

“That’s true, we would have probably all been dead if he passed through here, or taken prisoner for some grotesque experiments!”

The two old men shivered a bit as they knew that the evil cultivators liked making pills out of humans. The larger the cultivation of those humans the better the pill came out.

“If I was him… I’d probably head to the Eternal Dark?”

“Oh, right there is still that place…It would make sense if he went there...”

‘Eternal Dark?’

Wang Long perked up at the mention of something he wasn’t quite aware of. He strained his brain which had been enhanced by the system. Even though he did not like learning new things, his memorization capabilities were superhuman.

‘Oh yeah, now I remember… it’s some kind of area at the fringes of the empire…’

The memory of a certain forced lesson flooded into his head. This Eternal Dark was a region populated by demonic monsters and cultivators alike. It was supposedly a safe haven for these people as no one really cared for it.

It was surrounded by dark clouds and acid rain. The Qi was corrupt and would suck away the energy of any cultivator that didn’t study demonic energies. It was filled with dangers and monsters at every corner.

‘This could be it…’

A lightbulb went off in his head, it all started making sense to him. If he thought in gaming ways, this was the perfect place for him to conquer. The righteous cultivators could not venture into these lands that were filled with many dangers. He on the other hand bought an immortal level demonic cultivation manual that was perfectly suited for it.

‘I just need to go there and create my own demonic sect! No, wait. Why do I need to create it? I’ll just take over one of them!’

Wang Long had seen how Zhang Dong managed to make his own faction stronger. He attributed everything that his enemy achieved to his system. Thus he believed that if he took over a sect there he could dump spirit points into this new faction.

Through this, it would become stronger and act as his new army of demons. With his cultivation being over Zhang Dong’s and a large army of demonic cultivators and beasts, he would be victorious.

‘That idiot isn’t even using his system right, the evil factions are always stronger and easier to farm.’

Zhang Dong was clearly going with the good factions. The holy energies that he was using were proof of this. Wang Long knew that due to this his enemy couldn’t just go around killing people. Thus he would only be able to farm spirit points by converting spirit stones.

On the other hand he went with the more morally gray faction at first but now he was switching to a morally corrupt one. He could even kill people from his own side and no one would probably bat an eye.

While going through the faction section of the system he also discovered something. There were two ways of gaining more followers, one was through something called an approval rating that increased dedication. But there was also something else there, the fear rating.

‘I don’t need them to like me, if they fear me they will be forced to respect me and dedicate their life!’

“This is it, this is what I will do!”

The people that were having a conversation about the Dark Lands looked over to where Wang Long was seated. His outburst was loud and somewhat obnoxious which caused everyone to scowl at him.

“What are you looking at?”

Instead of apologizing though he started them down with anger in his eyes. The men instantly turned their heads to the side as Wang Long had a somewhat imposing air around him.

“That’s what I thought!”

Like a strutting peacock, he moved his chin up while standing up. Everyone went quiet for the time being after they noticed that the man that stood up was not hiding his Qi. It was truly immense and overbearing but thanks to Wang Long’s special disguising technique the people here didn’t perceive it as demonic Qi.

“Hey there old man, I have a question for you…”

Wang Long after the prolonged walk ended up directly in front of the two men that were discussing.

“P-please s-senior I didn’t mean to offend.”

“No need to be scared, I just wanted to ask you about what you were discussing, Eternal Dark was it? Where can I find this Eternal Dark?”

The two men were now lowering their heads while panicking. But this was not the first time that they interacted with a scary cultivator, if he asked them a question they just needed to be respectful and give him the information.

“Ah yes the Eternal Dark, you just need to go towards the…”

Wang Long just smirked while looking at his system map feature that as more information was given to him continued to fill up. Soon he had the correct path towards his destination.

“Good, this will do.”

The old man was given a pat on the shoulder before Wang Long left the premises. The moment he was down on the ground and outside the large expensive inn, he heard a dinging sound.

Hong Fung has been slain, you have earned 1 spirit point.

When looking up to the tower he could see a dark green cloud bursting out through the windows and eating its way down through the whole structure.

‘Damn low leveled shits, I need to get to a higher leveled place than this!’

As he departed the screams of his victims filled his ears but to someone like him that didn’t see them as anything other than spirit points their pleads went unanswered. What was on his mind now was the next stage of this game which would consist of gaining even more power and his own personal army.