Three days of testing complete, Zǔ Zhòu turned his examination inward.
The meditation chamber—a converted storage room he'd claimed for "cultivation deviation recovery"—was painted with symbols derived from his law testing. They formed a formation that shouldn't exist in this realm, designed to amplify spiritual introspection while filtering external interference.
He settled into lotus position at the array's center, closed his eyes, and dove into his own soul.
The journey inward was like swimming through molasses mixed with broken glass. This body's soul was surprisingly sturdy for its pathetic cultivation level—Liu Wei might have been weak, but his spiritual foundation was actually quite robust. A waste, really. Like inheriting a fortress and using it to store garbage.
Deeper he went, past the surface thoughts, through the layers of memory and emotion, into the core where soul met existence. And there, burned into the fundamental essence of his being like a cosmic tattoo, he found it.
The Laughing Demon bloodline mark.
"Well, well," he murmured, examining the brand with detached fascination. "Heaven's love letter, as promised."
The mark was beautiful in its malevolence. Not a simple seal or sigil, but a living scar on reality itself. It writhed with dark purpose, three interlocking circles that formed a laughing mouth when viewed from the right angle. Or wrong angle, depending on perspective.
Each circle contained densely packed information—warnings, identifiers, tracking mechanisms. The first circle screamed "DANGER" in every spiritual frequency imaginable. The second contained his spiritual signature from the moment of expulsion, a cosmic fingerprint that would let any sufficiently advanced cultivator recognize him. The third was the interesting one—it actively modified how he interacted with reality.
"Demonic affinity enhancement," he noted, probing the third circle carefully. "Negative emotional resonance amplification. Reality rejection coefficient increased by... oh my, 300%? Heaven, you shouldn't have."
The mark was designed as punishment and warning, but like most punishments designed by entities that had never truly understood evil, it contained exploitable benefits. Yes, it marked him for easier detection, but it also made demonic cultivation techniques three times more effective.
Time to test it.
He opened his eyes and rang the small bell beside him. Within moments, a servant appeared—one of the survivors from his law testing, a woman whose eyes held that particular combination of terror and resignation that came from witnessing impossible things.
"Bring me a prisoner from the city jail," he ordered. "Someone scheduled for execution. Tell the guards it's for cultivation practice. Give them this." He tossed her a pouch of spirit stones—more than enough to ensure compliance.
While waiting, he examined the mark further. The tracking mechanism was clever—it didn't actively broadcast his location but instead made him "louder" to Heaven's senses. Like painting a target fluorescent orange. Any significant evil act would resonate through the mark, creating ripples in the fabric of reality that Heaven could theoretically detect.
Theoretically.
Because Heaven's biggest weakness was assuming its enemies would try to hide.
The servant returned with a chained man—a bandit by the look of him, scarred and weathered with the kind of dead eyes that suggested he'd already accepted his fate. Perfect.
"Kneel," Zǔ Zhòu commanded. The bandit spat, which was admirably defiant for someone in chains. "I said kneel."
This time, he pushed intent through the mark. The demonic bloodline resonated, amplifying his will into something almost physical. The bandit's knees buckled like someone had cut his strings. His eyes widened—not at being forced to kneel, but at the sensation of it. The mark made his commands carry weight that transcended physical force.
"Interesting," Zǔ Zhòu circled the kneeling bandit. "Let's see what else you enhance."
He began with simple cruelty—a finger pressed to pressure points that induced pain without damage. With each touch, he monitored how the mark responded. It thrummed with approval, drinking in the bandit's suffering like wine.
But more than that, it was converting the pain into usable energy. Each scream, each whimper, each moment of despair was automatically processed into demonic qi that flowed into his dantian. The conversion rate was remarkable—easily three times what his manual techniques achieved.
"Heaven marked me as a demon," he told the bandit conversationally while testing nerve clusters, "but forgot that marks can be badges of office as much as brands of shame."
The bloodline did more than enhance cruelty. As he experimented, he discovered it actively suggested improvements. When he grasped the bandit's wrist, the mark whispered about seventeen better grip positions. When he channeled qi to induce hallucinations, it offered optimization patterns that would triple the psychological damage.
It was like having a cultivation assistant specifically designed for evil.
"You're not just a mark," he realized. "You're a cultivation physique. The Laughing Demon Bloodline—Heaven accidentally created a body constitution tailored for demonic cultivation."
The implications were delightful. Bloodline physiques were rare treasures that cultivation clans fought wars over. The Divine Thunder Body, the Celestial Ice Veins, the Primordial Chaos Constitution—each provided massive advantages in specific cultivation paths.
And Heaven, in its spite, had given him one designed for evil.
He tested the bloodline's limits. Emotional manipulation came easier—he could taste the fear in the air, parse its flavors like a sommelier. The bandit's terror had notes of regret (crimes uncommitted), rage (at being caught), and interestingly, relief (at finally facing justice).
Physical torture was enhanced too. The mark provided instinctive knowledge of how to maximize suffering while minimizing damage. It was the difference between a butcher and a surgeon—both cut flesh, but one did it with artistic precision.
"The real question," he mused while the bandit writhed, "is can I hide you?"
The mark was designed to be permanent, unhideable, a cosmic scarlet letter. But Zǔ Zhòu had spent eons learning to hide from entities far more perceptive than Heaven. The trick wasn't to conceal the mark—it was to make it unremarkable.
He began crafting a technique on the spot, pulling from seventeen different concealment methods he'd mastered. The Formless Shadow Shroud, the False-Self Reflection, the Karmic Misdirection Array—pieces of each, modified for this specific situation.
"The mark screams 'demon,'" he explained to the bandit, who had stopped screaming himself and was now watching with horrified fascination. "So I won't hide the scream. I'll change what it's screaming."
Layer one: Spiritual static. Generate enough background "noise" that the mark's signal blended into ambient spiritual radiation.
Layer two: False positives. Create dozens of fake marks that would trigger the same detection methods, like hiding a tree in a forest.
Layer three: Frequency shifting. The mark operated on specific spiritual wavelengths—shift his personal frequency just enough that detection would slide past like water off glass.
"It won't be perfect," he admitted, finalizing the technique's framework. "Full concealment would require resources I don't yet have. But it should muddy the waters enough to operate freely until True Immortal realm."
The bandit made a sound—might have been pleading, might have been praying. Zǔ Zhòu had honestly forgotten he was there.
"Oh right, you." He considered the man. Killing him would be wasteful. But letting him go would be problematic. "Tell me, do you want to live?"
Hope flickered in those dead eyes. "Yes! Yes, Lord, please—"
"Then you'll serve me. Specifically, you'll return to your bandit crew and implement some new policies I've been considering. Sustainable evil requires infrastructure, after all."
He spent the next hour explaining his vision for bandit reform. Instead of killing victims, they'd maintain them as renewable resources. Instead of random raids, they'd establish protection rackets with carefully calculated suffering quotas. The bandit listened with growing horror and fascination.
"You'll report to me monthly," Zǔ Zhòu concluded. "Bring the collected fear essence in these." He handed over specially prepared stones. "Fail to meet quotas and I'll demonstrate why Heaven bothered marking me. Succeed, and you'll live longer than any bandit has right to."
The man fled when dismissed, carrying new purpose and new nightmares.
Alone again, Zǔ Zhòu returned to meditation. The Laughing Demon mark pulsed in his soul, satisfied with the evening's work. Heaven had intended it as punishment, but like most heavenly punishments, it revealed more about Heaven's nature than the punished.
"You fear me enough to mark me," he whispered to the distant Heavenly Dao. "But not enough to kill me. That gap between fear and action? That's where I'll build my new empire."
The mark pulsed again, and for just a moment, reality shivered. Somewhere in the vast machinery of existence, an alarm should have sounded. A warning that the branded demon was already learning to use his chains as weapons.
Should have. But Zǔ Zhòu's concealment technique, even in its prototype form, introduced just enough uncertainty. The alarm hesitated, confused by conflicting signals.
And in that hesitation, opportunity bloomed like poisonous flowers.
"Thank you for the gift, Heaven," he said, rising from meditation. "I'll be sure to use it exactly as you feared."