Chapter 321: The History of the Taotie Clan

"Earth-Eating?"

Lu Yang bent down and picked up a clump of mud from the ground, resisted the urge to eat it, and tossed it back.

The Immortal Fairy let out a 'hey' sound and jumped up from the ground: "That's right, doesn't 'Earth-Eating' just mean eating dirt? Is that so hard to understand?"

The Immortal Fairy felt that although Lu Yang's intelligence wasn't as high as her own, figuring out something like this should be simple, right?

Lu Yang: "..."

So, in your family, 'Earth-Eating' is meant literally?

Seeing that Lu Yang still looked completely confused, the Immortal Fairy sighed lightly, feeling that it was fortunate she was there in his mental space to offer him strategies; otherwise, with Lu Yang's brain, he would easily be swindled out there.

She explained further: "Although the Taotie are said to be one of the Four Ancient Fiends, that was a reputation they only mixed their way into later on. In the very beginning, their whole family had it quite rough. They had huge appetites but no skills, were never full, and because they weren't full, they had no strength and couldn't hunt, creating a vicious cycle."

"The Taotie clan cannot practice Grain Bigu; they spend their whole lives eating."

"When starving, they'd eat tree bark, leaves, and whatever else, but tree bark and leaves don't last long."

"Later on, perhaps the ancestral graves of the Taotie clan smoked with blue smoke, and a genius appeared in the clan—someone with talent for cultivation and a sharp mind."

"That Taotie thought, 'What isn't eating? If tree bark and leaves can be eaten, why can't the mud on the ground be eaten?'"

"It went into seclusion for three days, not a drop of water passing its lips for three full days. It was on the verge of starving to death, its life flashing before its eyes. It thought it would perish right there, but then it remembered its clansmen, its family, those skin-and-bones brothers and sisters, and remembered their eager expectations."

"It felt it couldn't just sink into oblivion like this; it had to resist!"

"It saw hope in death, and the instinct for survival drove it to fuse everything it had learned in its life into one, finally finding a way out of a desperate situation and opening up a Great Divine Ability—'Swallowing Heaven and Eating Earth'!"

"This Great Divine Ability transformed into bloodline power, merging into the Taotie bloodline. From then on, the Taotie clan automatically learned this ability and began competing to eat dirt."

"Wait, hold on, how come I heard that the Taotie clan's 'Swallowing Heaven and Eating Earth' can even tear space apart? Listening to you describe it, it doesn't sound like something that can tear space apart?" Lu Yang was puzzled; that wasn't how it was written in the books.

The Immortal Fairy looked at Lu Yang, puffed up with anger: "Hey, you person, you really have no patience, listen to me continue!"

"Please continue."

The Immortal Fairy was triumphant, said "That's more like it," and continued:

"In the past, the Taotie clan had it rough, and their cultivation bases were generally not high because they had no energy to cultivate. Once they were full, they would have the extra energy to cultivate."

"Their clan's cultivation talent is enough to rival top-tier great beast clans, such as the Dragon clan, Phoenix clan, Kunpeng clan, Qiongqi clan, and so on."

"There is another reason their cultivation speed is fast: eating dirt really can make one stronger, and the better the quality of the dirt, the faster the cultivation speed. For a while, the price of black soil skyrocketed—that was all because of these guys eating it."

"The soil quality in the medicine garden of the Congwendao Sect is not low; if you're interested, you can give it a try. It's guaranteed to increase your cultivation speed!"

"Allow me to consider it."

Taking advantage of the time Lu Yang was pretending to consider, the Immortal Fairy continued: "As the Taotie clan's cultivation bases advanced by leaps and bounds, they began to stand out among the demon clans. In the end, not only their talent but the strength of the entire clan could be mentioned in the same breath as the top great clans."

"Only then was their name as one of the Four Fiends established."

"Once the Taotie clan became successful, they thought that since they were a great clan after all, eating dirt all day didn't look right, so they modified the 'Swallowing Heaven and Eating Earth' skill, changing it into 'Devouring All Things'—which is what you see now."

Lu Yang was silent for a moment, then asked: "Then, Fairy, why didn't you teach me this later version of 'Swallowing Heaven and Eating Earth'?"

The Immortal Fairy looked at Lu Yang strangely, not understanding why he would ask this: "Isn't this what you requested? To have the most ancient skill, and one that you could tell at a glance was from the ancient era?"

"This is a genuine ancient skill. This is a very ancient matter even to me; I only learned the sequence of events after seeing it in an ancient book and then hearing the Qilin Immortal add oil and vinegar to the story."

"Let me tell you, this move is almost lost; the Taotie clan might not even have anyone who knows it anymore. If you hadn't begged me, I wouldn't have taught it!"

Lu Yang: "..."

I thank you so much.

"Does this move have any use other than eating dirt?" Lu Yang asked, holding onto a glimmer of hope.

"Of course not."

"There really is?" Lu Yang felt a joy in his heart, thinking the Fairy was reliable after all.

"Try eating a mouthful of dirt; it's definitely dry and hard to swallow. If you drink water, it forms mud, which is also hard to swallow and sticks to your throat."

"That's where 'Swallowing Heaven' comes in. 'Swallowing Heaven' allows you to use spiritual energy as water after eating dirt, swallowing the surrounding spiritual energy to wash the dirt down. With a 'gulp,' you've eaten it!"

"... So this is a combo move?"

"What a way to put it. The founder was a genius of the Taotie clan, after all; isn't it normal for the move to be thought out to perfection?"

"Of course, 'Swallowing Heaven' can also be used alone; it's just absorbing spiritual energy."

"Let me try."

Lu Yang recited the mental cultivation mantra and opened his mouth. Sure enough, a massive amount of spiritual energy poured into his mouth, entering his limbs and bones.

"Cough, cough." Feeling as if he were choking, Lu Yang felt his breathing was obstructed, and his body instinctively closed his mouth, causing him to cough.

"You're absorbing spiritual energy too fast. With your current realm, you can't absorb it that quickly."

Hearing this, Lu Yang circulated his cultivation technique, calmed the spiritual power in his body, opened his mouth, and deliberately slowed the speed of absorbing spiritual energy.

The spiritual energy was like sweet dew, delicious and refreshing, digesting through his stomach and spreading throughout his body, feeling extremely comfortable.

"Comfortable," Lu Yang sighed.

"Wait, come to think of it, the feeling of absorbing spiritual energy just now, why is it exactly the same as using a Spirit Gathering Array?"

"You guessed right. The Spirit Gathering Array of our human race was originally created based on this ability," the Immortal Fairy revealed another ancient secret.

Talismans, arrays, and other hundred arts of cultivation were all ancient humans imitating nature and imitating demon beasts.

The demon beasts among these included the Taotie clan.

"No wonder... wait, even if I learned this version of 'Swallowing Heaven and Eating Earth,' it's useless. Who knows about this past of the Taotie clan now? Even if I start eating dirt, the people from the Jiuyou Sect won't recognize this as 'Swallowing Heaven and Eating Earth'!"

Lu Yang suddenly realized that while the skill being ancient was correct, there was a problem with it being *too* ancient—no one would recognize it.

He even suspected that in the Immortal Fairy's era, not many people knew about these things!

The Immortal Fairy hesitated: "Then do you want to learn the current 'Swallowing Heaven and Eating Earth'?"

Lu Yang nodded vigorously.

The Immortal Fairy breathed a sigh of relief: "That's easy to handle."

"How so?"

"I don't know it."

She didn't know it, so Lu Yang didn't have to learn it—a very simple logic.

Got home late, the second update will be around eleven o'clock.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 322 =====